Disturbing News
We called Mom this morning.
In the annals of Strange And Fucked Up Things I Wish Would Not Happen To My Family, one of my mother's three Pomeranians was snatched from her yard by someone or something on Thursday night, carried off, and nastily killed.
Stanley had gone out alone and had been out for no more than five minutes. My dad claims he whimpered once, but that the whole episode was silent otherwise.
That was as much as mom could say, but we learned more from a friend of theirs later and the more I find out, the more bizarre it gets.
I've been puzzling over it all day, and it just bothers me.
He was found several doors down, on the neighbors' lawn, with blood and fur everywhere. He was gutted, and there were bitemarks on his neck.
Another dog or a human would have made noise jumping the fence and then jumping out again with a 20-plus pound Pomeranian, and Stanley would have barked at a dog or a human. Pomeranians are extremely yippy dogs. So whatever it was must have been in the yard with him when he was taken. He could not have been taken out of the yard alive, as my mother believes, or he would have made a lot of noise.
There was apparently no blood in the backyard, but lots of it where they found him. Stanley was probably grabbed by surprise, shaken, killed instantly, then carried off, where whatever it was opened him up and was going to eat him. A passing car likely scared it off, and it didn't have time to come back before the body was found. That or all the fur really pissed it off, and it gave up.
Dad didn't call the police -- don't ask me why, I have no freakin' idea.
My mom is paranoid, and thinks it was someone stealing him to train a pit dog. She found a forked stick nearby and is convinced that they used it to hold him down while the other dog attacked him. Even though dog fights are not quiet - even if Stanley could not have cried, the other dog would have been snarling. And never mind that if someone was going to bother carrying a wriggling, 20-pound Pomeranian nearly a block away, they would probably have been prepared to take him even further away. And also, random dog-snatching and then killing on the same block is not to the best of my knowledge how people who train pit dogs work.
Okay, it could have been some psycho from the low-rent area nearby with a mean dog he wanted to have some sick fun with, but dogs that mean are never quiet, and nobody heard a thing. It very well may have been a stray dog, but I doubt a person was involved at all.
And stray dogs don't typically hunt and attempt to devour other dogs. A stray dog would have been into the garbage. It would've had to be a big dog, too. Stanley was, as I said, a large Pomeranian, and weighed a conservative 20 pounds. I picked him up and held him not a week ago.
The whole thing was quick, silent, efficient, with not a trace of anything amiss. If my parents lived in the country, I would label it either coyotes or a mountain lion.
But my parents live in the middle of the city not three blocks from a large highway.
Their house is across the street from a park with large sewer drains, but the worst that comes out of there are possums and raccoons. There's no way either could have gotten him out of the yard without rattling the gate or the fence. Not to mention that neither are what you would call vicious predators. And coyotes? We might have them in the city, but coyotes aren't very big. And, again, they would have preferred garbage.
It's possible my dad just didn't hear the fence, or the snarling. (But, then, he heard Stanley whimper just fine.) It's probably just a stray dog. (A stray dog that prefers going to the risk and trouble of killing another dog rather than stealing garbage.) Stanley probably just escaped from a securely fenced and gated yard and was attacked by a stray dog a few doors down. (Despite the fact that this particular dog has never shown the ability to escape from anything, and would not even use the doggy door.) I don't really think it was a big cat of any kind. I really don't. (But, damn, I wish I had been able to see those bite marks.) I'm sure there's a rational explanation for this.
It's all just a little fucking weird.
I'll probably be over there tomorrow, and I'll see what I can find in the way of tracks. The ground is wet, and something big enough to get in and out of the yard with Stanley in tow would have left prints somewhere. I've already warned the friends we have in the area about it.
I'm all right. I'm sad about it. Stanley was a sweet dog. Mostly I'm just worried about my mother, who doesn't need this kind of grief. I hope that at least I, with a better understanding of animals and how they kill, can at least convince her that he died very quickly, rather than in lots of pain.
But I'm still creeped out.
Seriously, this is like the opening scene of a horror novel or a Buffy episode, except there's nothing really funny about it.
I'll update if/when we learn more.
link
In the annals of Strange And Fucked Up Things I Wish Would Not Happen To My Family, one of my mother's three Pomeranians was snatched from her yard by someone or something on Thursday night, carried off, and nastily killed.
Stanley had gone out alone and had been out for no more than five minutes. My dad claims he whimpered once, but that the whole episode was silent otherwise.
That was as much as mom could say, but we learned more from a friend of theirs later and the more I find out, the more bizarre it gets.
I've been puzzling over it all day, and it just bothers me.
He was found several doors down, on the neighbors' lawn, with blood and fur everywhere. He was gutted, and there were bitemarks on his neck.
Another dog or a human would have made noise jumping the fence and then jumping out again with a 20-plus pound Pomeranian, and Stanley would have barked at a dog or a human. Pomeranians are extremely yippy dogs. So whatever it was must have been in the yard with him when he was taken. He could not have been taken out of the yard alive, as my mother believes, or he would have made a lot of noise.
There was apparently no blood in the backyard, but lots of it where they found him. Stanley was probably grabbed by surprise, shaken, killed instantly, then carried off, where whatever it was opened him up and was going to eat him. A passing car likely scared it off, and it didn't have time to come back before the body was found. That or all the fur really pissed it off, and it gave up.
Dad didn't call the police -- don't ask me why, I have no freakin' idea.
My mom is paranoid, and thinks it was someone stealing him to train a pit dog. She found a forked stick nearby and is convinced that they used it to hold him down while the other dog attacked him. Even though dog fights are not quiet - even if Stanley could not have cried, the other dog would have been snarling. And never mind that if someone was going to bother carrying a wriggling, 20-pound Pomeranian nearly a block away, they would probably have been prepared to take him even further away. And also, random dog-snatching and then killing on the same block is not to the best of my knowledge how people who train pit dogs work.
Okay, it could have been some psycho from the low-rent area nearby with a mean dog he wanted to have some sick fun with, but dogs that mean are never quiet, and nobody heard a thing. It very well may have been a stray dog, but I doubt a person was involved at all.
And stray dogs don't typically hunt and attempt to devour other dogs. A stray dog would have been into the garbage. It would've had to be a big dog, too. Stanley was, as I said, a large Pomeranian, and weighed a conservative 20 pounds. I picked him up and held him not a week ago.
The whole thing was quick, silent, efficient, with not a trace of anything amiss. If my parents lived in the country, I would label it either coyotes or a mountain lion.
But my parents live in the middle of the city not three blocks from a large highway.
Their house is across the street from a park with large sewer drains, but the worst that comes out of there are possums and raccoons. There's no way either could have gotten him out of the yard without rattling the gate or the fence. Not to mention that neither are what you would call vicious predators. And coyotes? We might have them in the city, but coyotes aren't very big. And, again, they would have preferred garbage.
It's possible my dad just didn't hear the fence, or the snarling. (But, then, he heard Stanley whimper just fine.) It's probably just a stray dog. (A stray dog that prefers going to the risk and trouble of killing another dog rather than stealing garbage.) Stanley probably just escaped from a securely fenced and gated yard and was attacked by a stray dog a few doors down. (Despite the fact that this particular dog has never shown the ability to escape from anything, and would not even use the doggy door.) I don't really think it was a big cat of any kind. I really don't. (But, damn, I wish I had been able to see those bite marks.) I'm sure there's a rational explanation for this.
It's all just a little fucking weird.
I'll probably be over there tomorrow, and I'll see what I can find in the way of tracks. The ground is wet, and something big enough to get in and out of the yard with Stanley in tow would have left prints somewhere. I've already warned the friends we have in the area about it.
I'm all right. I'm sad about it. Stanley was a sweet dog. Mostly I'm just worried about my mother, who doesn't need this kind of grief. I hope that at least I, with a better understanding of animals and how they kill, can at least convince her that he died very quickly, rather than in lots of pain.
But I'm still creeped out.
Seriously, this is like the opening scene of a horror novel or a Buffy episode, except there's nothing really funny about it.
I'll update if/when we learn more.
link