She Loved Her Dogs to Death

And now they're all dead. A tragic tale of unintended consequences.

Young Miss Zariah with some of the Pit Bulls that were rescued by her “charitable” organization, A Helping Paw

Young Miss Zariah — well, she wasn’t so young anymore, not even close, but that’s what she insisted everyone call her, “Young Miss Zariah” — loved her dogs so much that she basically killed them all. Oh, she absolutely did not mean to kill any of them. Quite the opposite. But unintended consequences can be brutal, and as the old saying goes, “The highway to Hell is paved with good intentions.”

It all started one day when she decided that she needed an important project to give her life meaning. One that she could brag about in holiday cards to all her friends who were married with children and who loved to remind her of that fact whenever they sent their Christmas cards every December.

The sight of all those smiling babies on all those Christmas cards just made her sick. “You know your baby doesn’t smile like that all the time!” she’d yell at each card. “Probably not even most of the time! You should put your baby’s picture on there with its nose running all over the place, and its diaper leaking piss and shit, and it crying nonstop in the middle of the night, because you know that’s how it really is.”

She’d take a sip of rosé and slam the glass on the table, before adding, “You gotta send me your stupid card that makes your life look all perfect, when you and I both know it’s not!” She’d shake her head, and her face would redden with resentment and rage. “I know your life really sucks, and nobody in your family is happy like they pretend to be on these stupid cards you send out to everyone!” And then she’d fling the card into the trash with a flourish and shout, “Bitch!”

But eventually, she’d write a nice reply, telling them how adorable their babies were and informing them of all the fun things she was doing these days and add that it was such a shame that they couldn’t join her sometimes when she did all those fun things, but she understood they had maternal duties to attend to instead. And as she signed her name to those nice replies and drew a nice smiley face next to her flowery signature, she’d mutter “Bitch!” once more to remind herself how she really felt about them.

It was December again, and Young Miss Zariah — not so young at 39, with the big “four-oh!” fast approaching — but dammit, she knew she still looked good and quite a bit younger than any of her old friends. In fact, she almost always got asked for ID at the grocery store whenever she bought wine. “Good to know I could still pass for 20!” she’d chirp merrily, as she handed her driver license to the cashier. Fat chance those bitches with all those babies looked young enough for cashiers to ask them for ID when they bought alcohol.

Anyway, Young Miss Zariah was thinking about how nice it would be to have an important project to bring her a sense of fulfillment and joy, and luckily for her, just such a project fell into her lap. And best of all, it was brought to her attention by one of those dreadful holiday cards from one of those obnoxious bitches who was oh so proud of her shiny, happy, stupid children.

Young Miss Zariah — young and attractive enough that she could still count on getting strangers to buy her drinks whenever she went bar hopping — groaned when she first opened the envelope, because she knew it was another one of those stupid holiday cards with a bunch of ugly smiling kids on it. And sure enough, it was. She held up the card and scowled. Her cousin’s three bratty-looking daughters smiled back at her from the photograph. The youngest girl was holding up her right arm to show off a large cast, which had become a mural of childish artwork and classmates’ signatures. Enclosed with the holiday card was a note giving a rundown of all the family members’ goings on over the past year. “Like I care,” mumbled Young Miss Zariah, as she started reading.

Young Miss Zariah’s interest grew when she got to the part about the girl with the cast. She learned that the girl had suffered a serious injury to her arm when she’d been bitten by a stray pit bull. “She probably deserved it,” muttered Young Miss Zariah, with the faintest trace of a smile forming on her thin, ruby-red-lipstick coated lips.

She continued reading. “Unfortunately, the dog will have to be put down,” said the letter. Young Miss Zariah screamed and threw the letter as hard as she could at the floor. Annoyingly, the letter just fluttered slowly downwards. Young Miss Zariah swatted angrily at it until it finally landed at her feet. Then she kicked it as hard as she could.

“That fucking dog killing brat!” screamed Young Miss Zariah. “Why should that dog have to die just because it bit that annoying kid?!”

Young Miss Zariah — young enough that she’d been able to flirt her way out of a parking ticket the other day when she’d parked in a handicap spot because she was running late for hot yoga — looked up the number for the city’s animal control office and called. She informed the operator that she was calling about rescuing a pit bull that was scheduled to be put down because it bit some mean girl who’d been teasing and tormenting it.

Eventually, after she had, alternately, sweet talked or threatened a series of lesser employees, her call was finally transferred to the director of the city’s animal control office, Mr. Warren Earlson, a sad and lonely man whose fiancée had recently broken off their engagement. Young Miss Zariah recoiled in disgust when he told her his name — “What kind of a loser name is ‘Warren Earlson?’” she thought to herself. However, she quickly detected an opportunity when she noted the loneliness and sorrow in his voice. Although she was speaking to him over the phone, she nevertheless forced a cute smile, fluttered her eyes coquettishly, and spoke in voice that was, somehow, both terribly pitiable and terribly seductive. Like an Academy Award-winning actress, she performed the role of a sad and lonely dog-lover who was heartbroken over the tragic fate of this beautiful pit bull, which had been cruelly abandoned by its owner and then unjustly condemned to die by an inhumane society.

Young Miss Zariah put as much sweetness into her voice as she could stand and asked Mr. Earlson if she could see him at his office — or, if he was by any chance free that evening, then maybe they could meet up at a fun little wine bar near the animal control center. Mr. Earlson pretended to check his calendar for a few seconds before saying that it just so happened that he was free that evening — even though he was actually free every evening that week, next week, and as far as he knew, every week after that.

Later that night, as she sat across the table from Mr. Earlson, Young Miss Zariah — young enough that she had quickly and completely hypnotized the animal control director with her feminine mystique — got Mr. Earlson to promise to have the condemned pit bull released to her care, against all regulations. Playing the role of an excited little girl, she squealed with delight and asked if she could give him a kiss. Mr. Earlson blushed and stammered incoherently. Young Miss Zariah took this as a “Yes.” Mr. Earlson was relieved that she had read his mind. He gratefully received the promised kiss, and in that moment, his heart leaped out of his chest and into her grasping hands.

Young Miss Zariah shed tears — real, wet tears — as Mr. Warren Earlson told her about other dogs, who were just like the pit bull that she had rescued from doggie death row. Those poor, helpless dogs! So cruelly sentenced to death by lethal injection, merely because they had bitten someone! Young Miss Zariah squeezed Earlson’s hand, gazed beseechingly into his eyes, and made him swear to help her help them. She would start a nonprofit to raise money and awareness!

“I’ll call it A Helping Paw!” she declared, as she wiped the tears from her eyes with her napkin.

“That’s an excellent name,” agreed Mr. Earlson, relishing the feel of her soft hands against his own.

Young Miss Zariah — young enough at 39 that she could still insinuate herself into the boyish daydreams of a city government official and induce him to violate his oath of office — soon formed her charity — well, at least it was technically a “charitable” organization under both the laws of her state and the federal tax code. True to her word (which was a rare thing in her life, as her “word” rarely meant anything), she named it A Helping Paw, and she went to work raising both money and awareness.

Young Miss Zariah had worked for several years in local television news, so she worked her media connections and got several favorable interviews on all the local news broadcasts and morning shows. She gave speeches and collected pledges at luncheons for just about every civic or charitable organization in town. A Helping Paw was a huge hit with upper-class women, who found that it also gave them a sense of purpose and fulfillment to devote all of their spare time and money to this cause, and to pressure their friends and family members to do the same.

Within a year, Young Miss Zariah — now 40-years-old, but still looking so young that when she gave a presentation about animal rights at the local high school, she noticed several of the boys staring at her ass and signifying their approval of its shape to their friends — Young Miss Zariah had saved two dozen dogs from being euthanized, including the original stray pit bull who had broken the arm of her cousin’s obnoxious little girl, and also including six other dogs who had also bitten people. This had caused some controversy: one of those dogs, another stray pit bull, had injured a toddler pretty severely, and the parents of this child had been irate to learn that the dog would not be destroyed. But Young Miss Zariah had used all her contacts in local media to make sure that the story about the injured toddler didn’t get any coverage, and when the child’s father complained to elected officials, Young Miss Zariah had organized an email-writing and telephone-calling campaign to inundate these politicians’ offices with support for the dog and vitriol for the child’s parents, whom she branded as ignorant, racist rednecks.

In the meantime, Young Miss Zariah had remained friendly with Mr. Earlson, whose affections she sometimes encouraged, sometimes spurned. Whenever she thought she might need the cooperation of his office, she would begin softening towards him again. She would finally allow him to take her out on a weeknight, wind up back at his place, engage in some amorous foreplay, and then pretend to pass out before anything more could happen. She knew he was too much of a gentleman to force anything upon her. Afterwards, she would continue leading him on for a couple weeks, until she had extracted whatever it was that she wanted out of him, and then she would grow cold towards him again. When he asked why, she would explain how he had offended her, how he had demonstrated some troubling character defect, and why she was unable to trust a man who would do such a thing. Mr. Earlson, meanwhile, was doing poorly at work, and his boss, the city manager, had already met with him twice about it. “This is strike two, Earlson,” the city manager had warned him at their last meeting. “Next strike, and you’re outta here.”

Young Miss Zariah’s movement reached its high water mark when one of her volunteers recorded a cell-phone video of an animal control officer tasing and pepper spraying a rabid pit bull and hitting it with his baton, before a police office arrived and shot it to death. Young Miss Zariah carefully edited the video: she removed the portion that showed the rabid dog snarling and snapping its jaws at three frightened boys who had climbed a tree to get away from it, as well as the part of the video where the dog lunged repeatedly at the animal control officer, and Young Miss Zariah enhanced the audio and lighting on the part where the dog whimpered and howled from the effects of the taser and the pepper spray. Finally, she added a loop to the end of the video, where the image of the dog being shot to death by the police officer was repeated three times, with the video slowing a little more each time, until the final images of the shooting played in slow motion. She and her allies then shared the video as widely as possible online. It quickly went viral.

As public outrage escalated, the donations came pouring in. Young Miss Zariah gave a press conference in which she called for the abolition of the city’s animal control department. “We must defund this city’s animal killers, and instead spend the money on veterinary care and shelters that will treat these beautiful animals with the compassion they deserve!” she shrieked, in between sobs. “Dogs are Man’s best friend. Well, what kinds of friend has Man been in return? He sends his animal control officers out to tase and pepper spray and bludgeon these poor animals, before sending out his police officers to shoot them dead and leave their bodies lying in the street!” Her audience screamed and shouted in solidarity with everything she said.

Young Miss Zariah asked everyone to go to A Helping Paw’s website and sign her petition to shut down the animal control office, to criminally charge all of its officers and staff, and to redirect its entire budget towards organizations, such as her own, that would help dogs to live better lives. She concluded her speech by leading the mob in a riotous chant of the phrase “Dog Lives Matter!”

Within a week, this petition had millions of signatures, not only from the city where this incident happened, but from around the world. Wanting to stay on top of this cresting wave of public opinion, the mayor announced that he was personally firing all of the city’s animal control officers, and that he was challenging the city council to rescind its budget. After seeing the enthusiastic response from the public to the mayor’s announcement, the city council held an emergency meeting and live-streamed it on social media. They accepted the mayor’s challenge and went a step further: they passed an ordinance banning the practice of euthanizing dogs, which they made punishable by a large fine and 11 months and 29 days in jail. “Dog Lives Matter!” chanted everyone in attendance. The city council members joined the audience in this chant.

Dog Lives Matter protesters during the “Summer of Puppy Love”

Suddenly, volunteers from A Helping Paw marched into the city council meeting with a cavalcade of dogs of all shapes and sizes. The mayor took a knee before the lead dog and licked its face. The council members quickly joined him in grooming the canine mascots of this burgeoning social justice movement. The entire room erupted in riotous applause that lasted two full minutes and ended only when the crowd resumed its impassioned chanting of the phrase “Dog Lives Matter!”