Dan
Paden, Chained
Chain Off 2005, Richmond, VA
Merriam-Webster
dictionaries define empathy, in part, as the act of “…vicariously
experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another …”
The mere two hours that I spent chained recently lent me more empathy
for tethered dogs than did my prior meetings with hundreds of these
neglected animals combined. And because I firmly believe that empathy
is a cornerstone of animal protection work, my limited participation
in this year’s demonstration was among the more valuable experiences
I’ve had since becoming active for animals in 1998.
I
began to get a sense for the misery of chained dogs days before
the demonstration, when I first hoisted the chains that I would
don on July 2. Together, they weighed 45 pounds. Each had been removed,
respectively, from dogs weighing about that much, meaning that the
animals had been confined by tethers weighing half of their own
body weight. It only took me a few yards trying to carry them—and
they amounted to a mere third of my own weight—to feel an ache
in my back and to work up a sweat, excess heat which, of course,
the dog would attempt to rid himself of through panting.
After
the struggle to even get them to my desk was won, I opened the containers
in which they had been stored. The smell was sickening and seemed
to be equal parts urine, feces and rust. My co-workers got a whiff
instantly, and I quickly took the chains to a porch to air out.
I debated washing them down so as to not offend those around me,
especially at the demonstration. But then I realized that the smell
was the truth of chaining, and that truth was not clean, it was
not pleasant. It was offensive, it was revolting. And as bad it
was for me and those around me, it was thousands of times worse
for the dogs condemned to those and other chains, whose noses were
and are thousands of times more powerful than any of ours. And this
was the stench of the chain itself, an iron reminder of the junk
and waste-strewn radius that dogs are forced to eek out an existence
on every day across America.
I
did virtually nothing while chained in Richmond, Virginia without
quickly realizing the parallel experience that chained dogs suffer.
Minutes after placing the chains around my shoulders, I realized
that one needs a significant amount of body fat to avoid the agonizing
pressure of the chains bearing down on muscles and bones. And of
course, chained dogs are typically as starved for food as they are
for attention, for a scratch behind the ears, for any form of companionship
with someone, with anyone. The chains hurt my neck and shoulder
muscles, and rubbed against my clavicle and shoulder blades and
spine. I wasn’t wearing a collar, precisely because at least
half of the chained dogs I’ve met are left to endure not just
the chain as a tether but also as a necklace of friction, cold all
winter and blazing hot in the summer. Day after day, night after
night, they feel their massive shackles against their bony, usually
rubbed-raw neck.
Not
an hour into our demonstration, I looked down the street to see
a stray dog struggling down the sidewalk a block away. He was emaciated
and covered, stern to stem, with mange. Ironically enough, hanging
around his neck was, of all things, a broken cord tether. My fellow
participants dropped their posters and leaflets and ran to whisk
him to safety and a veterinary clinic. I wonder now, days later,
how long he had sat in a backyard, starving and going mad on his
tether, struggling to scratch every itch on his crusted and inflamed
body before he oozed from sores and gave up, if he ever became numb
to his social and physical pain.
As
my friends cared for him, a breeze blew down the street and made
off with their dropped posters and literature. Alone for the first
time (I was surrounded by companions while chained, a necessity
that chained dogs never get a taste of), I dragged my chain and
reached for everything before it flew away. And just like that,
I felt the chain links press hard against my Adam’s apple.
I had reached the end of my radius, which was about eight feet.
I couldn’t go any further. But I was lucky, because I had been
moving slowly, not charging toward my boundary like chained dogs
do, so territorial and active and excited as they are when anyone
comes near them, let alone into their space.
The
reactions of passers-by to our event gave me some insight into what
it is to be a chained dog. After the two dozen or so supportive
comments that we received are cherished (that gave us all great
hope), you can split the reactions about evenly into complete ignorance
of our being there, on the one hand, and a bemused indifference
to our being there, on the other. Some just passed by, seemingly
oblivious to the message, and I sense that they too pass by chained
dogs each day on their way to work with nary a thought about them.
Others did see us and did read our posters, but seemed not to think
that the issue was one of life and death, as it really is, for the
animals and the public alike. And of course, I paid great attention
to each person’s reaction as they walked or drove by, as I
bet chained dogs do, sitting in that backyard, waiting for someone,
anyone, to care enough to stop by, to come visit, to work to save
them and to make things better for their kin in some city, some
county, in this country.
I
was a bit frustrated that day as I stood chained and had little
chance to give a voice to the chained dogs of Virginia and beyond.
The passers-by and the local news outlets both didn’t seem
particularly interested in hearing about these animals’ fates,
in hearing about their psychology and about how damaging and cruel
it thus is to chain them, and in hearing about how that psychological
damage leaves them aggressive and with no “flight” option
in their “fight or flight” wiring when perceived threats
approach or enter their tiny territories. And I realized that, much
like my message was misunderstood or ignored that day, the dogs’
constant barks, their behaviors, their digging holes in the dirt
inside their pen or next to the barrel they call home, their pacing,
is all ignored or misunderstood to a far greater degree.
Unlike
chained dogs, I escaped my tether. Unlike chained dogs, I was able
to clean myself, to socialize with peers, to have some water, to
not be exposed to passers-by any longer, to communicate my feelings
to those who understand, to enjoy a nice meal, to go into a home
and to lay my head down in comfort and to forget, if only for eight
hours, about the misery of being relegated to a logging chain in
the backyard.
But
just like the chained dog will keep pacing and barking in an attempt
to get some attention, this demonstration renewed my enthusiasm
to bring these animals’ sad fates into the public eye’s
view. Perhaps the best thing that came of this demonstration was
a phone conversation I had with Tammy as her 33 hours on a chain
drew to a close. We’re going to keep making noise, to keep
barking, so to speak, so that the public and our elected officials
continue to awaken to the cruel, dangerous practice of chaining
dogs.—Dan Paden
|
