[Dailydrool] Shooting dogs

[Elizabeth Lindsey]

So I'm at my ballet class today and the talk turns to guns. One of  
the women said she learned how to shoot because she was being  
stalked. She was afraid of handling a gun and being at the shooting  
range, but she came home with a shot-up paper target that she taped  
to her front door to let her stalker know she was ready for him.  
Another woman said she too had been afraid of guns, but there was a  
sharpei sitting in front of her door (when they lived in the  
country), and it wouldn't go away. So she drove to Wal-Mart, bought a  
bb gun, came back home again, and shot the sharpei in the forehead.  
She laughed when she told us she never saw that dog on her property  
again.

I didn't think it was funny at all. Our Elsinore is carrying a bb in  
her right haunch that doesn't seem to bother her, but about a year  
after she came to live with us, she had to have a pellet surgically  
removed from her back because it started shifting around and hitting  
her sciatic nerve, causing tremendous pain. She'd be fine one minute  
and shrieking the next. After the pellet was removed, scar tissue  
grew in its place and even now, five years later, periodically bumps  
into that nerve. This usually happens in the morning right after she  
comes out of her crate. She'll suddenly freeze in place, yark in  
pain, and then begin stretching out her back legs while yarking. We  
have to give her a muscle relaxer and then wait a long 30 to 45  
minutes for it to finally kick in and give her relief. It's so  
painful for her that she won't even look at her breakfast or a treat.  
She's too busy stretching, pacing, and yarking.

I've often wondered just how Elsinore wound up with ammunition under  
her skin. I doubt it was for bothering livestock because she's leery  
of horses and cows and has shown little interest in my in-laws' fowl.  
Was it unsupervised kids being cruel? Drunk yahoos whooping it up?  
But now I'm thinking, maybe it was someone who didn't want a basset  
hanging out on her property and couldn't come up with any other way  
of shooing her off than to go out and buy a gun to shoot her with?  
You'd think a Super-Soaker would have the same effect but without  
causing any permanent damage. Or mace. Or one of those noise maker  
things that only dogs can hear and find annoying. To me, a gun is the  
absolute last resort in a situation like that, where the dog is just  
sitting there and not, for example, actively trying to attack someone  
who has no escape. But apparently to some, it's the first and only  
thing they think of. I'm still feeling upset about this because I've  
seen what an old pellet continues to do to our Elsinore, and I know a  
surprise blast from a garden hose would have sent her running off  
just as quickly as a pellet gun.

Elizabeth