Dear Editor,
‘I am a dog, help me don’t hurt me.’
Looking around our city and its outskirts, it breaks my heart yet again to see the continuing population of street dogs long ago evicted by unfaithful owners and eagerly hoping to reconnect with faithful people. But that will never happen.
‘My name is forsaken dog, not a pretty name, and I have been roaming the streets for years mixing and meddling with my other abandoned street buddies. I wished to escape a life of producing puppies, but trouble was everywhere and I could not run so you know the end result. I am heartbroken looking for my lost or stolen babies. I dread to think they are slain or hit by vehicles and left to suffer in silence. Or my babies are all grown and they too have given birth only to worry about a horrible street existence, a lifetime sentence.
‘I raise my unhappy head and suffering eyes up to the sky to pray for rain to wash away my itchy, scruffy body. It did rain and pour. Oh wow, what a beautiful feeling; I could become man’s best friend again but I am not holding my breath, for I am only a dog, voiceless, helpless and always at the mercy of cruel human hands.
‘How I long to beg my owner, my best friend, to take me back, but I have no voice and my sad weary crying eyes are shunned. My scornful life is a daily struggle for basic food and water. ‘But let me tell you that my food and water is not nice and tasty like yours.
My daily intake to satisfy hunger and thirst is contaminated with infectious diseases having to eat from street garbage washed down with dirty water. But I cannot protest my contempt since I have no voice or a choice.
‘Permit me to jolt the absent-mindedness of the human race to notice my troubles; that yes, I am a dog with vital organs, as I too am a living entity just like you. I can contract chronic contagious diseases, but the only difference is if you are diagnosed with such ailments you will get treated. But I am a dog and could never dream of such a privilege, so I mercifully request your table scraps that could lessen my malnourishment before the gates of doggie heaven open to accept me. Happy days are here again.
‘I am a dog innocent and humble with a fundamental right to life, just like you, so please do not judge me by my misfortune. It was my master that committed me to a life sentence on the streets. All I ask of my forever human friends is to not hurt me physically or mentally for in my daily struggle to survive I face a lifetime of adversaries.
‘Please give me a chance of life, and oh please, do not stray my other four-legged buddies like you always do on the sea wall.’
Just think, if you were a dog, that could be you. We will be judged one day.
Yours faithfully,
Zenobia Williams
