You think you have troubles? Wait until you hear the story of a guy I work with and his fiancé. A few weeks ago he came into work and told us his fiancé had been at the local dog pound and a guy came in with a German shepherd and said he couldn’t keep it. He said he had to get rid of the dog and the guy’s fiancé said she’d take it. The dog pound people said they would have to go somewhere else to do their business so they left the pound and did a deal for the dog. The guy said where he was living he couldn’t have a dog and so now it belongs to the guy I work with and his lady. The guy brought in some pictures of this really skinny dog and said they didn’t believe it had been fed properly and they were feeding it and taking care of it.
Last week, the guy who gave up the dog decided he wanted it back, so he called and asked for them to give it back to him. The story I hear is that they weren’t sure the guy would take care of the dog and feed him and they had become attached to the mutt, so they said no.
The former owner went to the local media with his sad story and now the entire city wants to take apart the guy I work with and his lady. Here is a link to one of the local TV stations, which is taking an advocacy role in trying to get the dog returned to its original owner.
http://www.kctv5.com/Global/category.asp?C=70755
If you want to see the video, you’ll have to wade through a commercial or two. If this video doesn’t bring you to tears, then you just have no heart. Either that or you can separate hokey rat-vomit from the truth.
By the way, they don't pay shit where I work, so their turning down the two yards offered for the dog tells me a little something.
Having been somewhat on the periphery from the beginning of this story, I have a perspective that may be different than the one being purveyed by the mass media. Somewhere between truth and fiction is this “news” story. It is very interesting that the news media play up the fact that the man is a refugee from Katrina; that he is disabled and that his dog is an “assistance” dog. They aren’t very specific on what “assistance” the dog gives. I’m told the dog doesn’t appear to be trained, but I can’t speak for that.
What I can speak for is someone is going out of their way to make someone look bad. I can say that it has led to harassment and people protesting in front of their house. I can also say that when one takes an advocacy position, and exposes private citizens to public scorn, when they have no legal or moral right to do it, they better be absolutely certain of their “facts.”
When a local radio show and its listeners debated the issue for a couple of hours this morning I could tell the bias had been cemented firmly. The highlight was the guy who called and said he had sold his ’68 charger a number of years ago and he was having remorse and now he wanted to see if the radio station could help him get it back.
As the guy I work with says, “I just hope this goes away soon.”
We hope he is right here in Jimbo’s world.
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