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FAREWELL TO LOTTE
Attention people, the following text concerns the topic of euthanasia. The text is based on my own experiences and of course emotions are involved, because it is about Lotte, our Napolitano bitch that we had to let go because of bone cancer. However, among other things, it intervenes a bit savagely in the topic of dog breeding, responsibility for a life and dealing with difficult dogs. It represents ONE LIFE and not a generalization. Who is just weak on the nerves, read here only when at least the weather is better again.
Voyage, voyage, sailor voyage …and the waves cry softly.
Of course, she was not a sailor, but rather a sea lioness. And yet the song played often when we were on the road together. Lotte. It’s been a week now since we had to make decisions about your life, your death. The waves are high and if you are not so good with your life today, please don’t get into the lyrics.
She came to us blood young, after nobody trusted her anymore. The trust was gone after she had attacked her own people. In the shelter they talked about euthanasia. But psssst* one does not say such a thing loudly in the so-called animal protection. The breeder had no interest, the dog was dirty. It has nothing to do with his breeding. And why is there no empathetic death notice as usual?
Because Lotte died when she was not even 8 years old and because it makes me so angry how her short life went. Because people were interested and then didn’t feel up to it, who could in a row house settlement in the middle of the country of dangerously classifiable dogs? Because a relatively small Napolitanofairy, which had too much skin, but was of original nature and brought a good and watchful potential, was then nevertheless too unpredictable and should rather stay with us. The calculation was quite simple: Just don’t be a rag and explain to her that the other rags in your environment are only your business. It is not about the fact that SOMEONE HAS FAILED or SOMEONE GUILTY is being sought. It is about the simply excessive CONSUMPTION that is practiced on dogs. More and more exotic breeds, more and more impressive colors and formats. Impressive, a Roman fighting dog, that was she and she wouldn’t have been tameable, if under the many folds she had not been the sick breed dog. The one who couldn’t have slept and watched in the open air because of the pain, even if he had wanted to. She was cut open for neutering, after she reacted to almost every heat with inflammation and ulceration of the uterus and the udder, and was found to have overgrown organs, a heart that was much too big, that after all the years of free fall belonged only to her, and in the X-ray even more construction sites. Lotte was noticeable in bad weather. Sometimes she limped, sometimes she grumbled, the little weatherman. No matter, she was at home here, between the hounds and the visitors. Sometimes she was taken to a foster home until she began to restructure and sort out the hierarchy of the family.
A wild, happy but also self-determined warrior on her path against people who believe that dogs are guided by the latest scientific findings and want nothing more than equality and love. She wanted above all to be taken seriously, respected and accepted as Napolitano as they should be, what they were once there for.
Respect yes, deny their culture – fatal.
Lotte paid attention here and quickly and briefly explained to all people the essence of a quality guard dog.
“He doesn’t bark at all and just bites?!”
“Correct, it does not want to discuss, but that you disappear”.
“Cute with the wrinkles, imposing breed and what they can do!” And I can also understand it and I know also many really nice Napolitano, nevertheless Lotte was the fourth wrinkle fairy which was delivered with euthanasia notice in the Foundation. And all the nice stories and ravings of individuals, of people who actually understand their dogs or were just sheer luck in finding them, in no way justify the misery of 4 Napolitanos representative of all the other Staffs, Rottweilers, German Shepherds, Caucasians, Malis, mixes or imports sitting in kennels. Abandoned, misunderstood, underestimated! And I hate to be a doomsayer but I sit in the shady part of the animal welfare world, tried to save them all and had to realize there is nothing left to save if people don’t change their behavior. For Lotte and for all her discarded friends. I don’t care if someone sheds a tear when he leads his responsibility on a leash through our gates.
In such a way one does not deal with a life which one has made his own before from a purely egoistic thought (because who needs a genuine Roman here?)! And in such a way also those may not go with it around let it originate!
Bone cancer. Was said at the beginning of this year when the limp was different and seemed worse. Scattered, no chance.
Palliative – to accompany the whole thing to the end and we did. She never wanted to sleep in bed – it disturbed her when someone moved next to her. Then she puffed, got up and just let herself fall over a few meters on the next soft surface, like a small elephant that stumbles over its trunk and just stays lying. But steak, steak always worked and did until her last morning. You could tell that the cancer was attacking her bones and the painkillers were slowly but surely failing. With regard to Lotte, I can say we tried to do her justice and accepted her. Nevertheless, she lived with all the others here, far away from her own, species-appropriate home, until she eventually saw this one here with us as hers.
But people, who believe that the shelter is a happy place where people take care of them, seem to have forgotten that there is no one there in the evening when the light goes out and souls die alone, because you can not always choose the time of death. That during thunderstorms no one comforting crawls under the covers and if you behave wrongly the slider is the only means left so that a basic care takes place. So it went for Lotte once and so it goes for many today in the here and now!
Because the animal shelters are meant for animals in need, but not as a catch basin for adventures or self-experience with hasty purchase thought.
We are known to take many things with humor, but to wish an 8 year old dog a good journey over the Rainbow Bridge after a life in the shelter seems like sheer mockery. Lotte was bred for the pleasure of man and discarded when she could not fit in, because of genetics that all who know this breed should be aware of.
As harsh as it sounds, Lotte left far too soon and without a home. What was the meaning of her life ? A life that from the beginning was in the hands of humans…another best friend of man- produced, sold and discarded.
Lotte, I am sorry that we have not found anyone for you, you wonderful soul.