India has its sacred cows, but the USA has its sacred dogs.
—Anonymous post on a blog in response to a letter in a local newspaper
It was not that Adriana disliked dogs. She hated them. The barking was almost deafening. Adriana, a petite, mousy, middle-aged woman, remembered a time not long ago when public dialogue about dogs had been allowed on newspaper blogs—the days when the department of sanitation prohibited all but “service” animals in shopping carts, when dog owners used to have to sneak them into restaurants, when the first visual impression people had of city parks and courthouse grounds, upon arriving, was not of hundreds of unleashed dogs urinating and defecating on lawns and curbs. But in 2020 the public dialogue in open media, such as newspapers, was made illegal and these sources were held liable for any “inappropriate” public criticism of dogs, which was now against the law.
Not coincidentally, there were few options to view wild canines in urban or even rural areas, as most of the coyotes and wolves throughout the country had been eliminated. All the wolf reintroduction programs failed because agencies simply could not prevent the incessant shooting by the public. Thus the wolves were having a quick journey to extinction.
But for the coyotes, the journey to the end of the species was literally torturous. Because of the newly adopted prohibition on killing any domestic dog under any circumstances, humane societies (now combined with rescue centers) were now legally obliged to find homes for the multitudes of dogs that continued to come their way. To handle the particularly vicious ones, newly formed, for-profit organizations found a lucrative societal niche by offering the service of “wildlife control.” Dogs were trained to tear apart the unfortunate coyotes who had been aggressively trapped and placed in small pens, where packs of dogs were instructed to attack the targets, one at a time. The coyotes, deprived of their pack instinct, and individually placed in the pens, were easy bait for the teams of dogs whose instincts were encouraged to play out.
Within the following years, and because the general population had been manipulated by the media to accept the cruel turn of events as normal, reality shows with this gruesome theme, and primarily sponsored by the pet industries, became quite popular. In fact, there was a curious but direct correspondence between the diminishing of coyotes and the proliferation of doggie carriages, doggie hats, doggie jackets, and other accessories, including a special, designer line of
Doggie-Doo-N-Go toilet paper and bags. It was a shame, Adriana had thought when it all first started, being that coyotes retained their evolved intelligence. Way back in 2014, Adriana had bonded with a coyote who had been shot in his left leg. She remembered how the coyote would actually come up into the back yard to drink from the water pan she had placed under the brush at the edge of the yard. For the first few days, before drinking, he would timidly check with quick swipes of the paw of his good leg the lower branches near the pan for trip wires that could trigger a trap. What Adriana could not know at that time, she now realized, was the extent to which this whole mania would make its mark on the lives of those who remained oblivious to the socially manufactured benefits of dogs that provided the comfort and a sense of infantile control to the psyches within a psychologically frustrated and failing society. Now, behind bars, she attempted unsuccessfully to block out the echoing of yapping, yelping, howling, growling, and barking. She replayed in her mind the incident that had landed her in “The Pen,” as the facility, one of many, was known.
*
It had started as a small incident, really and relatively speaking, involving what looked to be a four-year-old child. Adriana had been waiting in line at the grocery store. Directly in front of her was a stout woman pushing a rather smelly cart with two dogs riding as passengers in the main part, a German shepherd and a well-groomed, white toy poodle. The woman was eating from an open bag of chips placed in the upper basket of the cart while she concentrated on the cigarette case. In front of the dog-filled cart, a mother holding the hand of a little boy pushed her cart filled with groceries forward. Adriana just happened to look as the a boy and the German shepherd riding in the cart behind that of the child’s mother both started to make a grab—snout with teeth bared paralleling the grasping little hand—for the same candy bar, one of many placed temptingly and predictably in the racks bordering the checkout line. Perhaps it was indignation at the foul odor that triggered her action. Maybe the fact that the shepherd’s owner, like many, took advantage and did not immediately use the required (and taxpayer provided) Doggie-Doo-N-Go bags to clean up after the shepherd had left a pile in the cart. Or, more likely, it was out of compassion for the child, not wanting to witness those little fingers undergo ripped skin and the resulting rain of blood.
Before she could stop herself—and quite uncharacteristic of her somewhat introverted nature, Adriana suddenly pulled the cart containing the two dogs out of line and sent it wheeling down a nearby aisle, where it crashed immediately into a row of nicely stacked, plastic accessories. The startled shepherd jumped out and took advantage of the first exit to outdoor freedom. The equally frightened poodle also attempted to jump over the side of the cart, but the little dog’s collar did not follow, effectively breaking the small dog’s neck. The dog’s owner, an obese woman with dyed blond hair and sunglasses, immediately used her cell phone to call the police. Both women then waited, the heavier woman clasping and unclasping her hands and alternating between sobbing and crying out, “My babies! What will Mama do? What will Mama do?... Oh, oh ...”
The obviously distressed, wailing woman began receiving sympathy and consolation from other shoppers, mostly those who also had various breeds of dogs in either the basket or the main portion of their carts. Adriana remained calm and appeared emotionless to those who wanted to see her as such; however, she was aware of more than a few shoppers who seemed to find the disruptive incident amusing, although they kept their heads down to hide satisfied smirks as they left the store. Adriana had planned, when the officers arrived, to use the opportunity to say that she simply did not want to see yet another child added to the five million (a figure she had just read in her insurance company’s newsletter) children bitten that year in this country alone .
But she had gravely underestimated the social climate. The child’s mother had quickly and fearfully ushered the child out so as to not be involved in the incident. The rotund blond, when pointing out Adriana, had accused her of harassment and interference but, primarily, of murder. Adriana was arrested for involuntary dog-slaughter. Because dogs were involved, the standardized penalty for this class of crime, regardless of the two minor semantic distinctions, was the same.
*
2022 came around quickly. Adriana had been on death row for almost a year, but she knew that she would not be seeing the welcoming in of 2023. Of course, fireworks had been banned throughout the country in 2017 because the majority of people felt that the noise was too painful for the sensitive ears of dogs. Reality shows now dominated networks, computers, and smart phones, so most people didn’t feel too deprived. And the shows were now particularly spectacular on New Year's Eve. Parades were passé. The media had found better accommodations to appeal to the cravings they had created within the culture. Adriana’s life, like dogs, would become an organic commodity—but only temporarily.
In the hard economic times of 2014, the prisons could simply not be expanded, although there initially had been plans to do so. With the dilemma of so many crimes being committed by humans and so much leftover space from the old days of confining “condemned” dogs, the solution became as obvious as the few remaining coyotes became elusive. By economically expanding the hold-for-adoption areas with galvanized steel, some clever administrators discovered that it was also sufficiently less expensive to include more holding cells for certain types of criminals—and specifically for those who could serve an unusually useful function.
Thus, a special wing within the confines of some of the designated humane society/ rescue centers housed certain criminal types like Adriana. They were kept in large cages that occupied the same spaces that once were reserved for the animals to be euthanized. This had the benefits of saving taxpayer dollars, and it was efficient. But most of all, it avoided waste and provided moral guidance. Once the putting down of dogs was banished, there was an enormous amount of sodium thiopental, paralytic substance, and potassium solution to be utilized. Televised and social-media displays of lethal injections proved particularly profitable for a number of corporations.
So it came to be that on the evening before the death of each old year, on New Year’s Eve, a selected group of human prisoners from various facilities were marched out from “The Pens” to adjacent, brightly lit areas containing rows of medical tables, complete with constraints. The rooms, originally small but now extended such that they resembled miniature warehouses, had once been used for euthanizing shelter animals. Now they were used for the same purpose, but the animals had been replaced with unwanted humans. Additionally, cameras and spectator walks had been installed to enhance the drama and to further appease the appetites of panting audiences.
This “event” was held only once a year due to the country’s fear of intervention by international objectors to the spectacle. In most countries, both the literal and social climates were such that, in order to adapt to the growing worldwide famine, nations had begun to meet their protein needs by eating the abundance of dogs. Some countries had also incorporated dogs into the work force as beasts of burden. Nonetheless, the rest of the world still tolerated this peculiar annual agenda of what was perceived as an impoverished and, more importantly, idiosyncratic and volatile country. Other nations seemed to sadly understand that Adriana’s country, along with all its other coping mechanisms and quirks, evolved to adjust to its diminished global economic power, clung even more so to its mass psychological projections. Unfortunately for Adriana, it was indeed a country that fiercely and obsessively preserved its sacred dogs.
—Anonymous post on a blog in response to a letter in a local newspaper
It was not that Adriana disliked dogs. She hated them. The barking was almost deafening. Adriana, a petite, mousy, middle-aged woman, remembered a time not long ago when public dialogue about dogs had been allowed on newspaper blogs—the days when the department of sanitation prohibited all but “service” animals in shopping carts, when dog owners used to have to sneak them into restaurants, when the first visual impression people had of city parks and courthouse grounds, upon arriving, was not of hundreds of unleashed dogs urinating and defecating on lawns and curbs. But in 2020 the public dialogue in open media, such as newspapers, was made illegal and these sources were held liable for any “inappropriate” public criticism of dogs, which was now against the law.
Not coincidentally, there were few options to view wild canines in urban or even rural areas, as most of the coyotes and wolves throughout the country had been eliminated. All the wolf reintroduction programs failed because agencies simply could not prevent the incessant shooting by the public. Thus the wolves were having a quick journey to extinction.
But for the coyotes, the journey to the end of the species was literally torturous. Because of the newly adopted prohibition on killing any domestic dog under any circumstances, humane societies (now combined with rescue centers) were now legally obliged to find homes for the multitudes of dogs that continued to come their way. To handle the particularly vicious ones, newly formed, for-profit organizations found a lucrative societal niche by offering the service of “wildlife control.” Dogs were trained to tear apart the unfortunate coyotes who had been aggressively trapped and placed in small pens, where packs of dogs were instructed to attack the targets, one at a time. The coyotes, deprived of their pack instinct, and individually placed in the pens, were easy bait for the teams of dogs whose instincts were encouraged to play out.
Within the following years, and because the general population had been manipulated by the media to accept the cruel turn of events as normal, reality shows with this gruesome theme, and primarily sponsored by the pet industries, became quite popular. In fact, there was a curious but direct correspondence between the diminishing of coyotes and the proliferation of doggie carriages, doggie hats, doggie jackets, and other accessories, including a special, designer line of
Doggie-Doo-N-Go toilet paper and bags. It was a shame, Adriana had thought when it all first started, being that coyotes retained their evolved intelligence. Way back in 2014, Adriana had bonded with a coyote who had been shot in his left leg. She remembered how the coyote would actually come up into the back yard to drink from the water pan she had placed under the brush at the edge of the yard. For the first few days, before drinking, he would timidly check with quick swipes of the paw of his good leg the lower branches near the pan for trip wires that could trigger a trap. What Adriana could not know at that time, she now realized, was the extent to which this whole mania would make its mark on the lives of those who remained oblivious to the socially manufactured benefits of dogs that provided the comfort and a sense of infantile control to the psyches within a psychologically frustrated and failing society. Now, behind bars, she attempted unsuccessfully to block out the echoing of yapping, yelping, howling, growling, and barking. She replayed in her mind the incident that had landed her in “The Pen,” as the facility, one of many, was known.
*
It had started as a small incident, really and relatively speaking, involving what looked to be a four-year-old child. Adriana had been waiting in line at the grocery store. Directly in front of her was a stout woman pushing a rather smelly cart with two dogs riding as passengers in the main part, a German shepherd and a well-groomed, white toy poodle. The woman was eating from an open bag of chips placed in the upper basket of the cart while she concentrated on the cigarette case. In front of the dog-filled cart, a mother holding the hand of a little boy pushed her cart filled with groceries forward. Adriana just happened to look as the a boy and the German shepherd riding in the cart behind that of the child’s mother both started to make a grab—snout with teeth bared paralleling the grasping little hand—for the same candy bar, one of many placed temptingly and predictably in the racks bordering the checkout line. Perhaps it was indignation at the foul odor that triggered her action. Maybe the fact that the shepherd’s owner, like many, took advantage and did not immediately use the required (and taxpayer provided) Doggie-Doo-N-Go bags to clean up after the shepherd had left a pile in the cart. Or, more likely, it was out of compassion for the child, not wanting to witness those little fingers undergo ripped skin and the resulting rain of blood.
Before she could stop herself—and quite uncharacteristic of her somewhat introverted nature, Adriana suddenly pulled the cart containing the two dogs out of line and sent it wheeling down a nearby aisle, where it crashed immediately into a row of nicely stacked, plastic accessories. The startled shepherd jumped out and took advantage of the first exit to outdoor freedom. The equally frightened poodle also attempted to jump over the side of the cart, but the little dog’s collar did not follow, effectively breaking the small dog’s neck. The dog’s owner, an obese woman with dyed blond hair and sunglasses, immediately used her cell phone to call the police. Both women then waited, the heavier woman clasping and unclasping her hands and alternating between sobbing and crying out, “My babies! What will Mama do? What will Mama do?... Oh, oh ...”
The obviously distressed, wailing woman began receiving sympathy and consolation from other shoppers, mostly those who also had various breeds of dogs in either the basket or the main portion of their carts. Adriana remained calm and appeared emotionless to those who wanted to see her as such; however, she was aware of more than a few shoppers who seemed to find the disruptive incident amusing, although they kept their heads down to hide satisfied smirks as they left the store. Adriana had planned, when the officers arrived, to use the opportunity to say that she simply did not want to see yet another child added to the five million (a figure she had just read in her insurance company’s newsletter) children bitten that year in this country alone .
But she had gravely underestimated the social climate. The child’s mother had quickly and fearfully ushered the child out so as to not be involved in the incident. The rotund blond, when pointing out Adriana, had accused her of harassment and interference but, primarily, of murder. Adriana was arrested for involuntary dog-slaughter. Because dogs were involved, the standardized penalty for this class of crime, regardless of the two minor semantic distinctions, was the same.
*
2022 came around quickly. Adriana had been on death row for almost a year, but she knew that she would not be seeing the welcoming in of 2023. Of course, fireworks had been banned throughout the country in 2017 because the majority of people felt that the noise was too painful for the sensitive ears of dogs. Reality shows now dominated networks, computers, and smart phones, so most people didn’t feel too deprived. And the shows were now particularly spectacular on New Year's Eve. Parades were passé. The media had found better accommodations to appeal to the cravings they had created within the culture. Adriana’s life, like dogs, would become an organic commodity—but only temporarily.
In the hard economic times of 2014, the prisons could simply not be expanded, although there initially had been plans to do so. With the dilemma of so many crimes being committed by humans and so much leftover space from the old days of confining “condemned” dogs, the solution became as obvious as the few remaining coyotes became elusive. By economically expanding the hold-for-adoption areas with galvanized steel, some clever administrators discovered that it was also sufficiently less expensive to include more holding cells for certain types of criminals—and specifically for those who could serve an unusually useful function.
Thus, a special wing within the confines of some of the designated humane society/ rescue centers housed certain criminal types like Adriana. They were kept in large cages that occupied the same spaces that once were reserved for the animals to be euthanized. This had the benefits of saving taxpayer dollars, and it was efficient. But most of all, it avoided waste and provided moral guidance. Once the putting down of dogs was banished, there was an enormous amount of sodium thiopental, paralytic substance, and potassium solution to be utilized. Televised and social-media displays of lethal injections proved particularly profitable for a number of corporations.
So it came to be that on the evening before the death of each old year, on New Year’s Eve, a selected group of human prisoners from various facilities were marched out from “The Pens” to adjacent, brightly lit areas containing rows of medical tables, complete with constraints. The rooms, originally small but now extended such that they resembled miniature warehouses, had once been used for euthanizing shelter animals. Now they were used for the same purpose, but the animals had been replaced with unwanted humans. Additionally, cameras and spectator walks had been installed to enhance the drama and to further appease the appetites of panting audiences.
This “event” was held only once a year due to the country’s fear of intervention by international objectors to the spectacle. In most countries, both the literal and social climates were such that, in order to adapt to the growing worldwide famine, nations had begun to meet their protein needs by eating the abundance of dogs. Some countries had also incorporated dogs into the work force as beasts of burden. Nonetheless, the rest of the world still tolerated this peculiar annual agenda of what was perceived as an impoverished and, more importantly, idiosyncratic and volatile country. Other nations seemed to sadly understand that Adriana’s country, along with all its other coping mechanisms and quirks, evolved to adjust to its diminished global economic power, clung even more so to its mass psychological projections. Unfortunately for Adriana, it was indeed a country that fiercely and obsessively preserved its sacred dogs.
