Tomorrow, assuming the police will actually act on things like they say, will be a day to celebrate.

I hope my uncle has enjoyed his weekend. I said that last weekend I know but honestly, the delay hasn’t bothered me one bit. The closer it gets to Christmas, the better.

This isn’t closure & it never will be. What it is though is one giant Fuck him! There’s a lot of feelings rushing through me right now but the most prominent one is actually excitement. I only wish I could be a fly on the wall to see him shit his pants.

What are we doing to a) Celebrate & b) …turn it into a joint Christmas present?

Well, after our little experience with Kojak (here, here & here.) we’ve long since hankered after rescuing another member of the bully breed family – I could go into a long, long post specifically about why we’re chosen to stand for Pit bull’s & the like but I think I’ll leave that for another day soon.

So, now that we’ve moved house & can actually have a dog, we’re even more eager.

Thursday night whilst browsing the local Metro Animal Shelter website we came across a beauty called, of all things, Vivian – yeah you read correctly. But names aside she was a real lover. Thing was, she’d been in the shelter since the 15th of July & they were obviously desperate to rid themselves of her.

Friday morning Bear handed me the phone & I called up about her, the daytime line wouldn’t work so I tried the evening one just for shits & giggles. Okay, so minus the giggles after what the girl on the other end of the phone proceeded to tell me.

She was a volunteer for the shelter & knew straight away who I was talking about.

“Oh god. They put her to sleep last month. She had a terrible, terrible life. She came in as a stray & gave birth to 10 puppies. They killed not only Viv but all her babies at a week old too. They don’t want the public to know, but they euthanize up to 30-40 animals every single day.”

I was stumped. It took a hell of a lot not to burst into tears down the phone on this girl I’m telling you.

But that was it, our minds were set. If they couldn’t give 11 lives a chance, we’d at least be able to give 1 a slice of hope & home. We embarked on a trek to the shelter which, unfortunately ended up not sticking to their hours listed online nor to the hours this girl told us… but not to dwell, at least we found out where the hell this place was.

It looked like a freakin’ fortress though, a prison. Incredibly depressing & it sure as hell wasn’t that last cigarette sitting heavy in the pit of my stomach. It was the sense of death & hopelessness.

I know these places are overrun & badly in-need of funding. I understand they have no other option. But why even give Vivian a sense of hope in the first place, why have her go through the birth & the first week of motherhood before murdering her & her pups? Everyone wants a puppy, I don’t understand why they weren’t at least given a chance at a family.

However, whilst we’re talking finances, it does make me wonder if her story was true & not just this angry volunteer trying to give me a sense of urgency. I mean, cost wise, even space wise, it just doesn’t make sense to have brought Vivian back to health, had her give birth & to put it bluntly, why would they wait to kill 11 dogs when they could have killed one & subsequently the other 10 would have died as a result.

I believe the public should know their figures too. How else do we get people to stop, listen & stop fucking breeding their animals when there’s tens of thousands being put to sleep every day because of over-population.

Tomorrow, Monday morning we’ll make the trip again & at some point during the visit I will enquire about Vivian as though I had never had that conversation on Friday. I do wonder if the response will be that she was adopted & all is well. If that’s so, I will be honest with them & tell them the tale I was told. Maybe it’s not a big deal to some of you, but to me, well, I want to know who might be lying to me & also, I might hope to be a volunteer there in the near future – I may not be able to work but I can volunteer.

From that experience we haven’t set our hearts on any of the dogs listed as I’m afraid of getting my hopes up & being shot down again like I was. I don’t take these things easy, evidently. But we’ll go around the building, take special care to see the ones who have been there the longest & perhaps, perhaps, we’ll put in an application for one of them. How I wish I could bring them all home, but such is life.

Anyhoo, watch this space… the sound of furry padded feet are approaching!