In Memory of April and Friend, Hunting Dogs

by Stephanie Ernst

categories: Companion Animals, Hunting

Published April 19, 2009 @ 06:56AM PT

What I'm about to share with you is a personal story (and a long one). And it's not an easy story to read, so consider that as you proceed. If it irks you when I get personal on this blog or if you can't bring yourself to read about something pretty terrible, feel free to pass this post by; I would completely understand.

A year ago today, on a busy, dark interstate, I experienced one of the more traumatic events of my life, and I wrote about it in detail the day after it happened. The fact that I couldn't save the first dog that night--and the fact that I then lost the second one, whom my then-partner and I had decided to call April when we thought we'd be able to get her back after rushing her to the emergency clinic--is undoubtedly one of the reasons I was so adamant about protecting Mabel the pit bull when she showed up outside our house almost exactly a month from the night we found April and her companion. There was no way I was going to let another dog who'd been neglected and abused by human "caregivers," but who'd found her way to me, die on the street or go to a cold shelter from which she might not escape. I couldn't bear it. I couldn't save the first two. But I could save this one.

I recognize that if we had been able to get April back, we wouldn't have been able to take Mabel too, with our number of needy animals already at 6 in a tiny house, and given that all area no-kill shelters and foster homes at the time were full and considering Mabel's condition, Mabel's life would have been over at age 1 1/2. But I am still mourning April nevertheless, and I am still mourning her companion, and today, I am remembering that night, vividly, and wishing I weren't. I am remembering it mostly with deep sadness but with some lingering anger too--anger at whoever numbered and neglected loyal beings he was supposed to care for, anger at the people in general who treat these dogs like hunting equipment, anger at the people inside the countless cars that drove by, and anger at an inflexible system that whisked her away. The following is from last year, unedited.

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B. and I had been arguing on our way home, and we were at that silent point, her watching the road ahead of her as she drove, me staring out the passenger-side window into the dark. The silence was broken at probably around 9:15, when I saw the wide-eyed, alert beagle sitting on the side of the road, on the shoulder, illuminated by our headlights. I shouted out, and B. responded instantly. She had seen him too. We raced down the interstate trying to find a place to turn around. By the time we got to an exit, got turned around, and made our way back to the other side, it felt like hours had passed since we'd first spotted him. Luckily, B. has driven this route hundreds of times and knew what stretch of road we'd seen him on. We were driving slowly in the right line and nearing the end of our stretch when we saw him again; he hadn't moved. She pulled over on the shoulder, as much into the grass as she could, and turned on the emergency lights, and I pulled Sara's collar off her--we had all three dogs in the back of the Subaru--and grabbed Chance's leash.

Just now, I began to write in detail here what happened in the next couple minutes, but I just can't bear to relate everything moment-by-moment. The short version is this: The dog evidently had already been hit when we first saw him, which is why he was just half-sitting, half-lying there. And once we got back to him and pulled over, everything happened over only one or two minutes, thought it felt like a lifetime. We tried to save this dog. Dear god, we tried so hard. We called to him. We tried to get close to him as he howled at us. We cried; we pleaded. At one moment, I was standing in the interstate in the dark, screaming and waving my arms at an oncoming semi. And at another, I was in the ditch on my knees, my back to the road and my hands over my ears, crying and hyperventilating.

When he tried to get up--whether to come toward me or to run away from me, I don't know--and his injured body betrayed him, knocking him over and rolling him into the right lane, I panicked. I missed my chance, the brief window in which I could have gotten to him to get him out of the way. B. tells me--as I know all of you will--that his death was not my fault. That neither one of us is to blame. That we could have been killed trying to get him off the interstate. That we tried, that we did what we could, while others just kept driving past him. But it doesn't matter what you say or what she says or what I know. I'll never forgive myself for that moment of panic, for not recognizing immediately that his growls and howls as I approached stemmed from pain and fear, and for not being able to put my own fear aside in that short moment when I could have saved him.

When I ran back to the car, gasping for breath and crying, B. was sitting in the driver's seat already, a look of horror on her tear-streaked face. We were arguing about whether he was gone, whether he was dead, whether we could still get out onto the interstate and get him off the road before he was hit again, and without getting hit ourselves, when she saw it. She was looking in the rearview mirror when a semi came and ended all hope. I am glad I didn't see it. I am so heartbroken that she did.

As we sat there sobbing, trying to decide what to do now, B. glanced up at the rearview mirror again and screamed, "Oh god, he's still alive--he's moving! Wait--no--there's another one out there! Go! Go! GO!" We flew out of the car, and sure enough, standing over that poor dead dog on the side of the road was another beagle, sniffing at him.

This time, we were luckier. I called to her through my sobs, and she came straight to me. As I attached the leash to her bare plastic collar, B. gasped, "Oh god, do you see her? She's starving." I scooped her up into my arms, and we rushed back to the car, where three curious, likely scared dogs were sitting in the back. I held her in my arms the whole way back to St. Louis, horribly aware the whole time of every jutting bone in this emaciated, wet, muddy dog's body, of every labored breath. She was sweet, this dog. She seemed not to mind as Chance and Sara, despite our best efforts, kept shoving their heads into the front of the car to sniff her. She looked at them calmly, seemed to sniff back a little. She curled up in my lap and never struggled against me once, moving only a few times the whole 45 minutes we were in the car with her. Near the end of the trip, she tried to stand up partway to see me. She lifted her head straight up in the air, her neck extended, to stare at me. I held her gaze for as long as she kept looking at me, and I told her how sorry we were.

We sobbed upon leaving her at the emergency animal clinic here in St. Louis, to be cared for overnight and picked up this morning by a humane society officer, as we'd been told to do by the on-call humane society officer I spoke to on the phone on the way. It was only once we had her inside, in the light of the office, that we could see just how sick she was, just how much her ribcage and bones stood out. It was only once inside that we could really sit face to face with her, and it was only once inside that we could see that though her plastic orange collar had no tags, it had a number--19--written on it in marker. This sweet, beautiful, starving dog had been a number to someone.

The whole way there, we were so confused about what to do--about whether to decide she was ours now, take her to our animal hospital, and take permanent responsibility for her or to release her to the care of the humane society, even if temporarily [Note: The reasons we weren't immediately sure we could care for her were multifold, including that we already cared for 5 animals split into two groups (in small space), multiple of whom already took up more-than-usual time, energy, and money because of their issues, and space and finances both were tight, but we were optimistic that we could find friends or family to adopt her from the humane society if it turned out we couldn't handle another addition]. We're not sure we made the right decision. We had very little time to think or discuss, and thinking clearly during and after such a traumatic experience is impossible; it is difficult to think clearly even now. Everything last night was shrouded in horror and panic and heartbreak and sorrow; still today, even though the panic has passed, the horror and heartbreak and sorrow--and yes, regret--still weigh heavily. I am awaiting a call today to hear how she did overnight. We have tried to comfort ourselves with the knowledge that we saved this one, even if we couldn't save the other, with the knowledge that though she is now in the custody of the Humane Society, perhaps they will let us adopt her ourselves once she's well, or perhaps we can help find her the best home possible.

B. and I cried a lot last night. We're still crying. We each have images and scenes, some the same and some different, from last night that keep replaying in our minds. We don't want to think about what we saw, about those few horrible, devastating, eternal moments, but we can't keep it out of our heads. This was the stuff of nightmares. And now here is this dog who survived, who saw her companion killed on the interstate, who curled up in my arms and watched B. with sweet, gentle eyes as we drove. And all we keep thinking is that after last night, she belongs with us, that we need to try to get her back.

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We never found out what happened to April. The following days and weeks were full of stress, tears, and anger as I wrestled with the local humane society and its policies, trying to get her back or to even get information on her. I checked the online listings every day until, and for still a couple months after, Mabel showed up and redirected my focus. I called and wrote multiple times. But no one would tell me anything, not even whether she was still alive. We came to assume that they likely euthanized her, but we never got confirmation. The guilt I've felt over signing her over to them in the first place on that dreadful night has been almost as great as the guilt I've felt for not being able to save her companion, but I take small comfort from knowing that at least, whatever her fate, she did not starve to death, she did not die alone, and she did not languish on the side of a road while terrifying cars sped by and people looked away.

I wonder, how many hunting dogs die that way? How many get lost and never return after they're sent out? How many starve? How many die after getting caught in hunting traps? How many are killed on rural interstates? And how many animals--dogs and others alike--die slowly on the sides of roads alone, when they could have been saved or at the very least put compassionately out of their misery if the people who hit them cared enough to stop, return, and call for help?

She was number 19 to someone who thought of--and treated--her and her companion as hunting tools. She was April to me.

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[Photo: Flickr user greenkayak73. This sweet-faced dog is Cotton. Her current caregivers report, "We found her in the woods in the Upstate, starved and scared and won her heart with hotdogs from a church freezer. It took years for her to get over it but now she is the happiest dog around."]