WORDS: Pay for your negligence

Neglect is a straightforward word. You either are responsible for something, or you are not. There are no fine lines, no gray areas, and the ultimate price to pay for neglect, unfortunately, in most cases for the culprit, is absolutely nothing. But for the people it affects, the outcome can be life changing. And as I stood on my front porch this Easter at my parents’ house crying, my boyfriend said this: “Those people are having a happy Easter while your family’s is ruined.” That resonated with me. And though a religious holiday, I stood on that porch last Sunday and had a horrible thought. Those people should pay.

Last week, my parents attended a church service for Holy Thursday. They never expected the horror that awaited them upon their return. As they walked into our basement, they noticed our cat Gable lying dead on the floor. Saddened, they believed he had passed away from old age, but as my father inspected our pet, he was corrected. Gable had been attacked, bitten in the throat. Shocked, my mom ran up the stairs and into our dining room only to be confronted by a dog. Screaming for my dad, the dog barked at her and ran quickly out the back porch.

And then they noticed the second cat. My mom’s best buddy, her faithful companion and rescued cat from the SPCA, Irwin, was lying dead, mauled to death and covered in blood in our living room. He had put up a fight and was even dragged across our rug, losing the battle to a vicious dog that had no right to attack him in his safe dwelling. Screaming from the shock of the sight and the total carnage in their home, my parents had to swallow their pain and had to clean up the bloody scene and remove beloved Irwin from the middle of it. Sadly, little did they know, it was not over. As they inspected our dining room, a third pet, Portia Jane, was huddled under the piano bench, alive, but badly bitten in the throat. Not being able to get a hold of a vet, my dad held her in his arms, trying to comfort the suffering cat.

A random dog, one we had never seen before, broke into my parents’ house through the back porch and wildly ran through our home, maliciously slaying cats, our pets, during the run, biting them in the throat and attacking them for nothing more than pure and utter fun.

Portia made it through the night, and my dad and brother took her to a local vet where they reported she was in stable condition all day. Relieved with the thought she would make it, my mother and brother decided to attend a Good Friday service in Shickshinny, as my dad and I stayed home, waiting on the back porch for this vicious dog — somebody else’s dog — to come back. Just before 7 p.m., our phone rang, and I picked it up only to hear the vet explain that Portia indeed had a punctured trachea, a diagnosis we would have preferred to have received upon her arrival at 9 a.m. that morning rather than allow her to sit all day without assisted oxygen. We were now faced with the decision to take her to the only hospital that could perform a possible surgery in Allentown or put her down. My dad and I looked at each other.

“What do you think?” he asked.

We drove to Allentown, determined to not allow somebody else’s untrained pet take three of ours. With Portia on my lap and hooked up to an IV, my dad and I made the hour-and-a-half trip, heartbroken from the expression on Portia’s face, terrified by the thought of losing her during the drive and with a passion to keep our pet awake by me talking to her through my tears, and hers, and explaining that she needed to hold on so we could save her, heal her pain, and bring her back to her home.

I called each day to check on Portia, and on Sunday morning, after I got home from Easter church service, I called again. Portia had passed away at 8:40 a.m.

My family is heartbroken. We are turned upside down from a weekend that should have been enjoyed by family and holiday spirit but was transformed into violence, invasion, violation, shock and ultimately, death. We didn’t lose a pet this holiday weekend. We lost three. We lost three members of our family that didn’t deserve to die in such a terrifying manner. They should have been safe in their home. They should have been sitting on our laps this weekend and sleeping next to us at night. Instead, they were brutally attacked and killed by someone else’s dog that didn’t belong in our house and victimized them and us. Because someone neglected to take care of their dog, my family has been changed.

So I want the owner to pay. I am not interested in their money. I am not interested in physical revenge. I am not interested in an apology. I want for one minute — 60 seconds — for them to feel what my parents felt when they saw their house terrorized. I want them to feel what my mother felt as she had to clean Irwin’s blood from our living room. I want them to feel what I felt when Portia looked directly into my eyes during the car ride to the hospital, and what I felt when I carried her deceased body out Easter Sunday. I want them to feel what my family felt as we buried three of our family pets this holiday. And maybe, just maybe, if the owner can feel a fraction of that pain, in my heart, negligence has been paid with a hefty price.

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