Texas Chain Off representative shares her experience.
Last weekend, Austin resident Cheryl Kaminski accepted the challenge to be chained for 24 hours to generate funds and awareness for the dogs who are forced to remain tethered their entire lives. She represented Team Lonestar during the first week of the
Dogs Deserve Better Chain Off 2008.
For her first four hours, she was joined by
Chain Free Austin co-founder, Timothy Verret and Rocky, his dog who had formerly been chained. Now living the good life, Rocky’s existence started out, well… a bit rocky. A few years ago, he was hit by a car. Instead of bringing him to a veterinarian, his former guardians placed him on a chain in the backyard. When faced with animal cruelty charges, they surrendered him to
Animal Trustees of Austin, where his untreated injury proved to be too severe to fix, thus his leg had to be amputated. However, having only three limbs has not slowed him down and when speaking of Rocky and his other dogs, Verret stated, “Three legs and he’s still the first one at the door to go walking.”
Not surprisingly, Kaminski is involved in animal welfare. She is a National Transport Coordinator and Moderator of the
National Pet Transport List Yahoo Group. In fact, the very day she chose to chain herself, thanks to her efforts, four cats were being flown from Michigan to Alaska to a young military family. These cats had been maintained through the
Operation Noble Foster program; however, now that the weather had warmed enough for the cats to travel, she not only arranged the transport, but had also solicited sufficient donations to cover the $583 airline cost. Kaminski noted that she even played a part in getting Dogs Deserve Better founder, Tammy Grimes, to transport a Chihuahua, as she drove from Pennsylvania to Chicago for the
main Chain Off event.
Kaminski only heard about the Chain Off one month ago. After viewing photos and videos of chained dogs online, she knew she had to act. She commented, “I love dogs and don’t think they should be chained. If you have a dog, they should be a part of the family, not chained in the backyard. They’re pack animals; they want to be with their people and they don’t want to be alone.”
She had previously not realized that
chaining dogs in Austin was against the law and felt that if someone who was as involved with animals as she was did not know, how could the general public be expected to be informed that such an ordinance was in effect. She hoped that the act of chaining herself for 24 hours in front of the Capitol of Texas would help to generate such awareness and to promote similar laws across the state and nation.
However, this was undoubtedly no easy feat. Here is an excerpt from her experience:
12:00 Noon: I've only been chained two hours and already I am starting to count down, okay only 22 more hours to go. The collar I am wearing is a lightweight fabric and the heavy six foot long chain weighs about 1 ½ pounds. With each turn of my head I feel the heaviness of this chain and the collar raking my neck. I try to adjust it to make it feel better and think to myself this is only two hours; I've got 22 more to go. How am I going to be able to get through this? Then I say to myself I must do this; I have to endure this for the dogs, the ones that nobody sees, and the ones that are ignored. I am their voice today and so I endure. I endure through the sweltering 100 or more heat and humidity that Austin is known for. I'm lucky I am not wearing a fur coat. I've got on a Dogs Deserve Better t-shirt, light weight yoga pants, and sneakers, but I can feel the sweat run down my back. Even in the shade there is no relief. I can only imagine how it would be with all that fur, fleas eating at my flesh, and no water to help cool myself down. I can stand, stretch, walk to the end of my chain, and sit back down, already wishing that I could get off this chain. And yes, realistically I can undo this collar, take this chain off, and call it a day, but then what kind of advocate would I be? So I leave the collar right where it is and in my mind I tell all those chained dogs out there that this is for them.
4:00 PM: Six hours into being chained and my neck feels raw. Granted I don't have fur as a dog does and I know that makes a bit of difference, but what about those dogs with the embedded collars? Is this how it started to feel?... I wonder how my neck will look tomorrow after only 24 hours on a chain.
As each minute and hour passes this heavy chain that is only six feet long keeps tugging at my neck. I just want it OFF now! I want to MOVE, RUN - anything just to get away from this one little isolating and depressing spot that I am calling home. I want to shout at the people passing by LOOK AT ME! ACKNOWLEDGE ME!! But I don't. I sit and watch the world pass me by, ignored as though I didn't exist. The sheer boredom is something that is hard to put into words and as I sit here, I feel more and more depressed, isolated and emotional. I think of all the dogs out there that are living like this, day in and day out in the heat, cold, rain, and snow and I want to cry for each and every one of them because although I have only been at this for a few hours, they live out their entire lives this way - a mere existence in a shell of a body.
7:30 PM: I just found out that although I had thought someone was going to come sit with me for this four hour segment from 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM (Chain Free Austin was kind enough to put out the word and had people offer to sit with me for four hour stretches so I wouldn't be alone), [no one came]. Again I am struck with how a chained dog must feel. This gives me a bit of a perspective as I think a chained dog in the backyard sees the door open and there is his person. He gets all excited thinking, "Yes, finally they've noticed me! They're gonna come get me and bring me in to be with them" and then they turn around without any acknowledgement or throw a few scraps into a dirty bowl and go back inside. He barks just wanting someone, anyone, to notice him there. Yet they go on with their life and he is forced into a life of depression, isolation and merely existing.
10:00 PM: It is dark outside and the lights are not very bright in front of the State Capitol or at least along the street. I for one do not like being out at night and I've wondered are dogs afraid of the dark? I know they are afraid of storms. I've heard people say how their dog will hide behind the couch when it storms out, so what about these poor dogs stuck on the end of a chain in a blinding storm or just out in complete blackness, does it scare them? It is hard to sleep, every little noise is heard, the ground is hard, and yet millions of dogs endure this every night.
9:30 AM: I am a half hour away from finishing my 24 hours as a chained dog. I've not slept, I feel so depressed, and my body aches. I want to cry I am just so sad and I'm ready to go home.
One of the news stations has shown up for one more interview and the last question I am asked is, "After having done this for 24 hours do you feel that you now know what it is like to live as a chained dog?" and I looked at him and it took everything in me to fight back the tears and I said, "No, I don't believe that 24 hours can really give you the total overall life experience that a chained dog feels throughout his life living in isolation alone."
I was lucky, it didn't rain or snow during my time as a chained dog and I was able to communicate with the people that passed me by. I was chained at 11th and Congress in front of the State Capitol building, a very busy place to be. Yet I felt so depressed, isolated and alone, as though I didn't exist.
As I look back during this entire experience I have come to realize that no matter how many hours you spend on the end of a chain you will never really truly feel what it is like to be a chained dog, because they are unable to communicate their discomforts, aches and pains, depression, isolation and boredom. Most chained dogs are stuck in the back of a yard alone; some nobody even know they are alive, and yet these dogs never give up hoping that one day someone will notice them, love them, and change their world by breaking those chains and bringing them in to be part of the family.
I hope I was able to reach someone out there who saw me chained either by walking by me, seeing me on the news stations, or in the paper and looked out their window at their dog laying there chained and went out there removed that chain and brought their dog inside, changing his/her life forever. If even one person did this, then I have achieved what I wanted. I made someone aware of this lonely, depressing, isolating existence and made life better for a chained dog.
HOW YOU CAN HELP:
• Although her 24 hours is now complete, Chain Off 2008 events are still occurring around the United States through Monday, July 7.
You can still
sponsor Cheryl and Team Lonestar for Chain Off 2008 or any of the other many
participants. As of this posting, Kaminski is in
fourth place for the most donations nationwide, having received $2,135. Let’s show everyone that Texas hearts are as big as the state. Please make your online pledge today.
For more information:
•
Dogs Deserve Better•
Chain Off 2008 – Unchain Our World•
Group fights to ban dog chaining in U.S.•
Group Chains Themselves to Trees at Capitol to Oppose Chained Dogs•
Nonprofit group protests chaining of dogsPosted by Jennifer Hayes, Best Friends Staff
Photo credit: taken by Jennifer Hayes