Part i. My Parents Killed Our Dogs

 

I was born in New Hampshire but raised in Bolton, Massachusetts, a quiet town an hour from Boston. It is an idyllic place, with lush green meadows, dense forests, a golf course, abundant apple orchards, and an annual namesake, The Bolton Fair.

Even now it seems a place untouched by time. The sun shines through the trees just so and the long summer days seem never-ending. The fall foliage blooms with a rich palette of yellow ocher, burnt oranges and crimson reds, bringing nostalgia and the reminder of never ending cycles of death and rebirth.

My early childhood is filled with many happy memories. I remember the feel of the grass on my bare feet, climbing trees to look for blue robin eggs, looking around with wonder at the world and nature all around me. In the winter we built many a snowman and skated on the small pond in the woods behind our house.

Our childhood home in Bolton, MA

I was one of four siblings, with an older brother and sister, and one younger sister. We were constantly inventing games, stories, and ways to pass the time. We rode bikes, we sold lemonade at a stand at the end of our long dirt driveway. We created a fake TV show and a radio show with our own original songs.

We rescued wild animals whenever they crossed our path, moving baby snapping turtles from the road. We nursed an injured chipmunk back to health. We "saved" a mother mouse and her pink babies who were nesting in our neighbors grill (later we had a mouse infestation at home). We also had endless amounts of domestic pets; gerbils, hamsters, fish, sea monkeys (brine shrimp), turtles, rabbits, and dogs.

Unfortunately our parents left us mostly unsupervised with the animals, leaving us to figure out how to take care of them ourselves. There was inbreeding in the gerbil population, countless litters, and when the numbers became too much, our parents would make us "free" a few, release them into the woods with a small amount of food and bedding. They didn't inform us that gerbils are domestic animals adapted to a desert environment, and that they stood no chance against predators and impending winter.

Like most children, we eventually pleaded with our parents to get dogs. The first dogs we had were a brother and sister, a black lab mix from an unofficial breeder. We named them Midnight and Snoopy. My father, who is from India and sees dogs as pests rather than household companions, refused to let us keep the dogs inside. So he had a cage built from metal chain-link fence in the backyard, with two wooden doghouses. They lived there all their lives and we went outside to feed them and play with them. I remember helping my older sister with transporting dog kibble with the wheelbarrow. We loved them as much as any kids can love their dogs. They were completely untrained and a bit wild, but it didn't bother us, and we didn't know any different.

Then as the dogs got older they began digging and escaping from the cage from time to time. They started going to the neighbor's farm house and chasing their sheep. Instead of training the dogs, or surrendering them to a shelter, my parents decided to euthanize them. Without informing us children and without allowing us to say goodbye, they took the dogs to the vet where they were given lethal injections. I remember coming home from kindergarten and looking for the dogs. I remember my mom sitting in the living room holding their collars with dangling dog tags, while she explained what "putting to sleep" meant. I remember crying with my brother and sisters. This is the first substantial trauma I can remember. I must have been around 4 or 5 years old. Reflecting back it just seems so irresponsible, so irrational, and so sad.

Pages from a book I wrote as a child  

A few years later my parents purchased another puppy, this time from an official breeder with papers. She was a German Shorthaired Pointer. We named her "Koko Pebbles Brown and White" in her official documents, Koko for short. This time my father allowed us to keep the dog indoors, and she slept in our beds and chewed on our toys, and we loved her very much. (This story also has a sad ending. I will tell it in a future post).

I am understandably very sensitive to people who harm animals and children. I care a lot about animal advocacy, veganism, and helping animals in need. Some part of me feels the guilt and the shame for what happened, even though I was a child and not responsible. I know now that I had no real power, and poor parental examples. ■

Edit March 4th, 2024

My older sister would like to elaborate on the story. She explains that my mother's friend Sue put pressure on her to put the dogs down. She scared my mother into thinking that she could be sued if the sheep would be injured. My mom was easily convinced of this, and she relied on other people to help her make decisions. She lacked inner conviction. I still hold both parents accountable for what they did.