Just Wow

I used to work at a large dog kennel. I worked there for 2 years and greatly enjoyed my time with the animals up until a few months before I left. I actually worked in the kennel running dogs out to potty yards for play times, feeding, medicating, watering, cleaning, and just generally caring for the 300 animals we would have at any given time. It was not an easy job but it was rewarding. I was in the best physical shape of my life and rewarded with sweet sloppy dog kisses everyday. During my time there this place holding as many pets as it did had not one outbreak of disease, mistreatment, etc. So you can imagine the shock that fell across our faces when one of our frequent customers came in with some sad news.

He had taken his dog to another place called Happy Tails to get groomed. He said the only reason he was taken to this place instead of ours was the price. His dog would never come home. If I recall correctly he had passed from heat exhaustion, meaning they used hot air to dry the pup until he nearly fried to death. A horrible way to go. What's more sickening is the owner showed little remorse and didn't even try to contact the owner, he found out when he went to pick up his dog. This was not the only death to occur at Happy Tails and eventually the owners gathered up enough resources to investigate the company and owner.

The death of the poor dog happened around January of 2008 and just last week the owner, Eric Webb, was indicted on felony charges of animal cruelty. Then they found him in a ditch one evening after riding around drunk and knocking mailboxes down, he was unscathed, until today.

According to the news Eric Webb snapped. He got into an argument with his estranged wife and decided to slit her throat and stab her chest in her driveway while two of their three kids watched from the locked car. He then abandoned them and arrived at his business where he died of a self inflicted gun shot wound. Today. Today three young children are without parents. Today one selfish man decided to make a life ending decision. Today a pet killer turned into a murderer. Today no more pets will be killed at the hands of Eric Webb.

This is another one of those moments where I try to put myself in everyone else's shoes and wonder just how hard putting one step in front of the other could be. Wow, just wow.