Creatures Under Heaven (updated)

“To deal the tortures of hell to the animal creation is a way which too many people have of showing their belief in it….”

from A Dog of Flanders by Ouida, 1872

This afternoon we did some needful grocery shopping, and on the way home Mrs. Orr asked me to swing into the drive-thru of our favorite local burger joint. She wanted to pick up a gallon of their tea, the best in the region.

Idling behind a couple of other cars in the lane, I looked across at the back yard of a home a couple hundred yards away from the burger place. In the yard is a small dog run, perhaps 10 by 20 feet, enclosed in the webbed rusted netting of chain link. Inside the enclosure is a good-sized dog house. A handsome German Shepherd lives in the house, and almost always when we wind around the drive-thru lane we can see the dog laying in a desultory sprawl next to the shingled shelter, chin down on forepaws, watching the world that he never gets to explore. And I am always troubled by the sight of such a fine but solitary figure. I believe in my Southern heart that he is not only lonely, but aware of his loneliness, and of his neglect at the hands of those who feed him. I have through the years known several people who have treated dogs in this fashion, installing them in kennels or chaining them to trees or buildings and then providing nothing from that day forward except food and water, or the occasional ill-tempered shout for the poor thing to shut up that infernal barking.

I always leave the drive-thru feeling diminished and guilty, as if I am bearing witness to a great crime against a noble creature.

And then we return home and are greeted by two mutts who were both abandoned but live now in a home where they are cared for and loved, a place where I believe they feel not only our deep affection but also our sense of dependence on them for….something.

This world is unkind to the little creatures under its heaven. The ignored dog, the feral cat used for BB gun practice by cruel youths, the pastured horse with overgrown, split hoofs, the forgotten goldfish, floating alone and almost motionless in its bowl of murky water, the caged bird who daily watches with its intelligent eyes the sun travel across the carpet below its filthy cage. Sad creatures under heaven, all of them. I wonder if their awareness of the crumbling world extends to grasp the existence of thousand-dollar dogs who eat chopped filet mignon from silver forks held by avaricious hands, or sullen, squash-faced cats with their own custom-made beds and electronic litter boxes? I doubt they are aware of these things, because if they were able to grasp them, they might rise up in that pure, un-smug fury that only the innocent can manage, and ignite an animals’ revolution, just to seize the the initiative once, just to feel right and righteous beneath their furs and feathers, no matter the outcome.

Ah, but no. It doesn’t work like that, this flinty world. They have their roles and their fates, and they live and die alone, as we do.

But if they could take such actions, I would buy two needles sand teach myself to knit. An aged revolutionary. Or at least a rabble-rouser for the rabbits and the German Shepherds. Yes. I like the idea.

~ S.K. Orr