The Green Acre 20 Are Our June 29 2014 Pups of the Week

I am often asked what us dogs’ biggest failing is, and sadly I know the answer, we trust humans too much.

Often this is a wonderful trusting relationship that lasts our lifetime.  But occasionally we put our trust in the wrong person and when we do the results can be horrific, at least for us.  When our parents put their trust in these same bad humans their cries of sorrow can be heard across the river.

This is what happened at Green Acre Dog Boarding in Gilbert Arizona.  They advertised themselves as having facilities for a dozen dogs who would have plenty of room to play inside and out with individual attention from the staff.  Parents, looking for a loving doggy daycare, left their dogs at the facility last weekend.

Something went terribly wrong that day. By it’s end 20 dogs, who had been left at Green Acre Dog Boarding earlier in the day, stood on the steps of the Bridge, waiting to be sworn into the immortal life.   They all told the same sad story.    They were brought into a small shed that did not have air conditioning.  If you are unaware of what happens to a dog left in a broiling hot environment I will explain.  Because we can’t sweat we first begin to pant and drool.  Our hearts begin to work harder.  Our blood pressure drops because our blood cannot be pumped through the body.  Blood starts to pool in our vital organs  The kidneys suffer thermal damage, small blood clots begin to form.  The cells inside the intestine and stomach become damaged leading to diarrhea and vomiting.  The cells in the liver begin to die.  As our system shuts down our brain swells which brings seizure, then coma, then death.

And that is what happened to each one of these dogs in this endless line.  They were left in a shed on a hot day with no air conditioning and the all succumbed to the heart.  Meanwhile, on the mortal side of the Bridge the humans were doing what the humans do.  First the two caretakers at the facility, not the owners who had gone to Florida, said the dogs had run away.  One of the parents of the departed decided to search the grounds for his missing friend and found his dog’s body, along with many more, behind the shed where they were trapped and died.

The owners and caretakers continued to try to shift blame.  They took a picture of an electrical wire that they said the dogs had chewed through.  On examination by experts it was determined that, if dogs had chewed it, the cord would be frayed, where this cord had been neatly snipped in two.

Humans will continue to do what humans do, try to get “justice,” in the form of money from one another.  I do know that the Green Acre Dog Boarding won’t be getting much business in the future, and there will be no place on this side of the Bridge when they pass over.

All I can hope is that humans learn from this, but I am afraid that humans are very slow to learn.

Today my Daddy was at a Pet Smart when a woman came in.  She had written down the license plate of a car where a small dog was trapped inside with only one slightly cracked window for air.  Daddy told the manager who paged the owner.  The owner was at the register, and announced that she would just be a minute.  Both Daddy and the manager told her how quickly a car could heat up but the woman didn’t seem to understand what she did wrong.  When Daddy told her she was in one of the few stores that allowed dogs the owner said she didn’t like bringing the dog in the store because it makes a mess on the floor.

Hey lady, not as much of a mess as a dog with diarrhea suffocating in a car makes.

So, for the Green Acre 20, please make sure humans understand what the heat does to dogs so we don’t have another tragedy and the line at the Bridge becomes shorter.