Dear Editor:
This involves a case of animal abuse in Jersey City Heights, on a residential and quiet block. It also involves an instance where a city office (animal control) not only didn’t do their job but responded in a way that smacked of a lack of concern in an emergency situation. I’ve written the events quickly because I wanted to get this out there while it was still fresh in my mind. I am a little concerned about retribution (the people involved seem shady to me.)
Thursday afternoon (Thanksgiving Day) I heard a dog barking from what sounded like a few houses down from where I live in Jersey City Heights. The dog continued to bark into the evening. The barking started again the next day and the following days after. It was incessant barking and crying and it went on for hours. I finally decided to try and find out what the problem was so I went out and around the corner to where I thought I might be able to get a closer look. A neighbor came outside and I asked her if she knew whose dog it was. She told me it belonged to the house on the corner. She said both she and her neighbor next door had called to complain about the incessant barking many times but nothing was done. She seemed to think that the people who own the dog work for the city and that the complaints and reports were ignored by city agencies because of this.
I called the SPCA of New Jersey and made a formal complaint and mentioned that this animal might be in an abusive situation. I received a call back soon after and spoke to Detective Patterson who was very nice and sympathetic (actually he was more than nice he was wonderful). This was Saturday evening and I could hear the dog whining the whole time I was on the phone. He promised someone would be looking into the matter. I promised that I would be following up.
The next morning my next door neighbor knocked on my door, very upset. She said that the dog had been left outside with no food or water for four days. I immediately called animal control and spoke to a person who said that the office was closed and no one could help, then he said he would have to call someone but only in an emergency, I asked him what made this instance of dog being left out in the cold without food or water not an emergency. Then he said well, it’s been 4 days, another day won’t hurt. What?!!! He suggested we throw food over the fence….I wanted to throw his ass over the fence. This person needs to lose his damn job.
My neighbors threw food over the fence (she told me that the dog was thin and scared).I had to leave for an hour for an appointment. I could not stop thinking about this poor animal. On my way back I saw a man in front of the house where the dog was, unloading a car. I asked if that was his dog left outside and he said he was feeding the dog all weekend. And that it was the people next door to him who owned the dog. From what I found out from neighbors he was lying through his teeth.
I am confused and frustrated….I feel powerless and angry and wonder what it will take to force a little evolution onto my fellow homo sapiens. Why is animal abuse only taken seriously by a few compassionate individuals? And what constitutes an emergency? And why is that City Agencies appear to be worthless? What the hell is going on? Why are we not taking care of our animals? Why have a pet then? How ignorant do you have to be? All I can do is wait and see how this unfolds and in the meantime do whatever I can to run interference between the helpless animal and their less evolved human counterpart…
Nancy