What happened on January 30, 2012 changed our lives. On a two-lane that serves as connector to the northwestern Hilltowns, 2 dogs were left stranded in the path of traffic. The dogs were frail, brown with dried excrement, blinded by wads of hair that hung down to over their eyes, and covered in matted hairs so thick that merely walking was an almost impossible struggle.
We coaxed the dogs into our yard with dog kibble and compassionate words. To stagger and waddle the thirty yards into our fenced-in backyard took each dog 25 minutes. Our children – ages 1, 11 and 8 – were speechless and horrified.
Our family hesitated to approach them. They were filthy; they stunk; and we wondered if they would be aggressive. But we couldn’t abandon them as someone else had done. We had to get the dogs to safety and give them fresh food, water and shelter. We talked to them, attempting to reassure them they would be alright.
But their plight was pitiful: they desperately needed help. So we made that our mission. We hit the social networks, the Westfield News, and the local police and dog officers, notifying them of this heartless case of cruelty to animals. Our home printer went into action copying pictures, making announcements. This became a story not of dog rescue but of a family coming together, working together.
With the help and guidance of the dog officer, we transported them to a local kennel. When the dogs were released from the transportation crates, the kennel’s owner was left speechless. She had never seen two dogs so filthy, so smelly, so malnourished, and so mistreated. Matted hair kept us from even seeing whether the dogs were male or female. We could not see a tail. We could not recognize a breed. Probably the dogs are some mixed breed like a “labradoodle.” Someone said, “I’ve only seen something like this on television.”
The kennel owner worked carefully and diligently. She could not comb, brush, or unravel the matted fur. She had to shave and clip it away because the dogs were covered in feces and urine. The fur was thick; she peeled away layers that equaled two times their body weight. Underneath the matted coats of hair and feces was wet skin covering emaciated bodies and tails. The dogs’ eyes were red and irritated. Both dogs were males. The fur clipped off filled a 30 gallon garbage bag.
Once the dogs were safe (and cleaned up) at the kennel, our children went off to their schools with posters, pictures, and announcements. The children marched into principals’ offices and into classrooms to tell the dogs’ story, and the staff and teachers of Gateway Regional School District made accommodations and announcements and truly embraced our children. Our children urged everyone to “find their owners” and to “help these dogs.”
As the week unfolded, the frail, desperate, smelly, hardly mobile dogs of Monday night became simply dogs in need of love, attention, and compassion. The kids worked tirelessly at putting new pictures up, talking of the progress the dogs were making and making a movie on their computer. They have gone to visit and pet the dogs every day. Dinner time was spent talking of how to help these dogs and working toward a larger goal of establishing a fund to help any animal in need in the towns of Chester and Huntington. We discovered ourselves working together as a family, learning together, and “paying it forward.”
Martha and Brian Otterbeck
63 Bromley Road
Chester, MA 01011
