This Tragic Fucking Dog, My Piece Of Shit Neighbors

Please to maim the 'owners.'

steal the dog now
My brother did this. He took a dog that his neighbor across the alley left tied on a short lead day and night. He did it right in front of the guy, telling him to go ahead and call the police. The guy didn't—somewhere in his pea-brain he knew he'd been doing wrong by the dog. She (a beautiful rottie-dobie mix) remained my brother's pampered companion for the rest of her life.

in case anyone thought i was bullshitting:

http://summerloversunlimited.com/images/dog.jpg

pics too if i can lol

BITCH

le coq, yesterday

Do we still go round with a hammer if these are elderly people, gay people, Chinese people, the urban poor? Do we confer with them first, get their side of the story, or just lash out with lethal force? And how does it then feel living next door to them?

Two anecdotes: last week I came home to hear a scratching sound. It was the cat. Someone had trapped him in a dark room. When I let him out, I discovered another atrocity: a bell-shaped collar restrainer around his neck. "Whoever did this is a fucking sadist," I thought, and tried to pry it off, but my efforts only made the collar tighter. Later the cat's owner came home and explained to me that the cat had had its bollocks chopped off ("they live longer") and that the restrainer was to stop it licking the area. Suddenly everything looked very different.

Second anecdote: today I saw a student degree show at the Parsons communication department. One film was a series of vox pops taken on Union Square, New York, on the subject of eating dogs. Would you eat a dog? What do you think of people who eat dogs? Most people responded "While I wouldn't personally eat a dog, I realise that that's a cultural thing. Many people think it's gross to eat cows, for instance. So I wouldn't condemn people who eat dogs."

So, while I fully expect to be flamed for suggesting it, I really think Le Coq can only be called any sort of "saviour and lord" (and the contrast with the dehumanizing language used to describe the neighbours is somewhat unsettling) if he actually asked a few questions before brandishing a hammer in the direction of the human beings who live next door. They're animals too, you know.

Misanthropy -- it does a body good.

do you know anything about animals at all?

??? Are gays, Chinese, and the poor famous for being unable to treat animals humanely?

You know what, I feel like that dancing horsehead man right now, I'm just gonna leave this argument to the rest of ya. But before then, let me just point out that LC posted pictures of the animal in question and his conditions and Momus is still arguing that there might be a perfectly valid excuse for animal abuse, and that it's totally comparable to him jackassedly mistaking a recently-operated-on cat who climbed into a hole as the same thing as the abused animal that there are pictures of on this thread. Good night and good luck, kids.

http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/2307/houndcontrol7db.th.jpg

dude, that's pretty damn common rig for any pet for the exact reason stated: it keeps the thing from chewing at its own stitches, wounds, etc

I cannot believe Nick didn't recognise a post-op collar!

I strongly suspect that Momus' story was as real as LeCoq's threats of inflicting physical injury on the owners of this dog. I feel that Momus was trying to teach us a lesson, Aesop-style.

Momus and Tuomas have good points, but honestly I was bummed/infuriated constantly since I moved in, barely even sleeping cuz the shit was just too damn sad. I wasn't really planning to dead the owners, just threaten and damage property. I don't plan to go to jail for anything this...BASIC. Thanks to everyone who responded and welcomed me to MTL...i'll email yall soon once i get fully moved in! I'll update the story once I have more info/pics.

do you know anything about animals at all?

-- electric sound of jim (and why not) (electricsound@*) (webmail), May 22nd, 2006 11:03 PM. (electricsound) (later) (link)

"That crazy bastard next door is getting worse. Get this, the middle of the night last night he starts knocking on the door. We go and take a peek, but he looks pretty riled up about something, and it's, like, 3am, so we leave the door shut. You know, we aren't crazy. But he starts screaming through the mailslot. That goes on for a while. Then he goes around the back, pulls out a hammer, and starts smashing up the gate, the balcony, our concrete, still screaming. No idea what he's shouting, we don't speak English. Anyway, he's smashing everything up, reducing our whole porch to rubbish! Then he disappears.

"Shortly after that, just as we've put the kids back to bed and are finally falling asleep, the police arrive, and tell us this guy doesn't like the way we keep our dog, and he thinks we're dead because we've left our washing out on the line for a few days! We tell them (through our eldest boy, who speaks some English) that it's not the same washing, we just wash the same stuff a lot, and always have something drying there. As for the dog, he bit our youngest child, so we keep him outside.

"Anyway, luckily the police understand, they don't charge us for any crimes or anything, and when we point at all the damage the crazy guy has done to the entrance to our place they're very sympathetic, but they say we have to sort that out with our neighbour ourselves. They have to be kidding, right? He's clearly a dangerous maniac on a very short fuse. If this were China he'd be behind bars. Now we're thinking about getting some very sharp swords, just to protect ourselves. This country can be a hard place..."

(There follow messages of sympathy, incredulity, suggestions of what to do next time the crazy guy strikes, advice on how to train the dog to attack intruders, etc.)

Tuomas is being a douche because he, like Momus, is basically bringing up a point that is completely irrelevant to the thread (and to ILX in general, considering the number of ppl here who are vegan, vegetarian, or at least obsessive about getting free-range small farm animal products, judging by a huge portion of other threads). But that's his "thing," at least he didn't bring up extreme feminism. I agree with him that ppl should start somewhere but I don't think the fact that this was a "fluffy dog" has anything to do with why people here were pretty outraged--I think most of the posters here would be equally outraged if there was an abused goat sitting out there.

WTF are you talking about? We actively cheered him on!

Or have I vastly overrated his self-awareness?

WTF are you talking about? We actively cheered him on!

Exactly! And it was at that point I "came to a conclusion" about this thread, and decided to risk flaming by putting a slightly different point of view.

wouldn't everyone and momus agree that calling the cops was warranted

Sure, but it's interesting that the police decided to take no action, and their intervention won't exactly have improved relations with the neighbours. Neighbours who hate you are neighbours you can't influence. And neighbours are -- yes! -- people who live next door to you, ie people who can make your life an utter misery in one of a thousand sickening ways.

xpost that's not "interesting," that's par for the course. Which you'd know, if you knew anything about animals, and animal abuse. Also the clinging to "cultural differences" as an excuse to abuse of animals is sick and pathetic.

http://keanua-z.com/webpix/tedlogan.jpg

http://web.mit.edu/maes/www/pics/keanu.jpg

I love that you're trying to make an anti-violence "point" by advocating the further abuse of this dog. If you'd care to answer any of the actual points people have made on this thread instead of saying the only semi-sensical "Chinese isn't a race" or putting "LOL VIOLENCE" on repeat like a broken record, it'd be nice.

But I'm not expecting you'd do that, because you never, ever do.

xpost isn't Keanu part Chinese? I see a trend.

There was/is no good solution to this problem. So the police were alerted, they didn't do much, figures. Why give the owner's a chance if the abuse is obvious? Sure, the dog could've bitten someone in their family, but that's no excuse to leave it on in the rain on an iron balcony that doesn't even have a proper floor to rest on. They could've taken it to an animal shelter, the humane society, something like that.

You should've just taken the dog. We did that once when I was a kid. The owner's might be relieved. Yay! The dog jumped the railing and ran away! No more responsibility! You'd probably be bashed on here for taking the dog, though.

I just don't see how you find this so offensive (and I think this is the angriest I've seen you).

http://ilx.p3r.net/newanswers.php?board=1

Now I see where the racist assumption comes from. I never think of Chinese as eating dogs (my associations of eating dogs are from M*A*S*H and therefore Korea).

Who's being the douche here?

I agree with him that ppl should start somewhere but I don't think the fact that this was a "fluffy dog" has anything to do with why people here were pretty outraged--I think most of the posters here would be equally outraged if there was an abused goat sitting out there.

They should be out there liberating all the abused farm animals then... What I was trying to say is that in general in our societies there is a double standard on how animals are treated depending on whether they are considered pets or farm animals, which this something this discussion brought to my mind. Maybe it's irrelevant to the thread, but on the other hand one reason even many animal-loving people ignore it is that, unlike mistreatment of pets, few of us get to witness it. Out of sight, out of mind. And I'm guilty of it myself, since I'm a lapsed vegan who consumes dairy products these days.

Given this situation, I'd first try to nicely knock on their door and tell them I think their dog wasn't loving life out in his porch coffin, then, if they didn't do anything about it or they wouldn't answer the door, I'd call the humane society, animal control, or just steal the dog and try to find a home for it. I hope LeCoq had some interaction with the neighbors prior to screaming and pounding, because just maybe they're just ignorant and could be convinced.

We treat those animals we have anthropomorphized into being part of the 'family' different from those we will eat down the line - this is neither odd nor hypocritical.

that's true. very young puppies don't have developed immune systems plus you're not supposed to have unvaccinated dogs out as they could bite other animals or people. however, there's a huge difference between having your puppy go out on the patio and leaving one confined on a balcony 24/7 in inclement weather.

xpost

Point is nobody knows who the neighbours are, but they know all about TFD - anyone would have called the animal people in the circumstances. I get the feeling that the area is divey.

dudes who talk like this are the best guys to pick fights with as they can't fight for shit

xpost - yes. (although i think aside from the gif most of the thread is a rerun)

"you guys" = canadians? or half-asians?

If only it were. Am I alone in thinking that LeCoq came here seeking affirmation for his rage, and got it:

Ned: "Please to maim the 'owners'.

Fritz: "Go with hammers."

LeCoq then actually did go with hammers, and smashed some stuff up before calling the police. So "internet venting" about hammers led to actual real world hammer action. Now, let's just say the neighbours then decided to press criminal damage charges, and the police agreed... do you see where this is going? And let's say some unfortunate event now follows in which the neighbours seek revenge on LeCoq, repaying like with like. Well, it won't affect us, sitting here on the internet, will it? Bully us...

Momus when the revolution comes you are free to hide under my coffee table

Ha, Tuomas, you're making this weird assumption that this is some kind of shocking oversight, and not totally intentional! I mean, it's no more logically inconsistent than the distinctions we make between wild animals and killable pests. The rules are relatively clear, at least -- if you're going to keep a domesticated animal, you either keep it as a food source or you keep it as a pet and take decent care of it.

There are exceptions to that, I guess, but they kinda relate to what's interesting about arguments that we shouldn't eat meat. It seems like the main thing there's opposition to is meat as pure product, this mechanistic (and ridiculously brutal) production of it we have. Whereas most people I know who are anti-meat-eating are much more open to those old farmy animals that kind of hover between "food" and "pet," animals that someone's raised personally and "respected" before eating them. There was someone -- can't remember who -- who spoke opposite Peter Singer on this kind of thing, and basically wound up claiming that what people want from meat is almost a kind of spiritual connection, the animal that's "offered" as sustenance rather than coming in plastic for greedy private consumption.

Then again, the fact that anti-meat-eating people are more okay with that might just have to do with cognitive dissonance regarding other stuff they believe -- i.e., they tend not to be the kind of people who want to claim that American Indians were totally wrong and amoral for eating buffalo, or whatever.

Oh and, umm, I'm pretty sure this isn't the case, and I say that as someone who's helped slaughter and eat a goat. People are rolling their eyes at Momus because he's trying to spin grand questions around what looks like a pretty clear-cut case of some people who just aren't taking decent care of their pet.

xpost

Yeah, Thomas, I agree with you, but I'm wondering what comes after that! Like if factory farming were out of the question, I'm wondering if these people would be much bothered by the old hand-on-animal "respectful" organization.

Momus when the revolution comes you are free to hide under my coffee table

-- Thomas Tallis

Can you not put words in people's mouths please? Also with the whole racism thing.

The point is that it's not productive to attack people for simply being ignorant, it really adds weight to the "liberal elitist" canard. Leaving a dog outside doesn't mean there's malevolence, it's not the same as deliberately setting it's tail on fire, some people don't know better and it's not unheard of to have pets that live outside 100% of the time.

Two annoying things combined on this thread: The usual paradox about how people who care for animals often forget to care for humans, who are animals too. And the way people on internet bulletin boards advise absurdly unethical and inappropriate courses of action to people asking for advice without actually thinking through the consequences of such action for the person asking. Seriously, what if LeCoq were now assaulted or murdered by his neighbours for smashing up bits of their house?

I was also interested in the complete lack of cultural relativism shown in the responses, although that's probably the weakest part of my argument; the statement "What if it's in their culture to treat dogs like that?" is easily met with "And what if it's in our culture to take a hammer to people who treat dogs like that?" and we're back to square one (which is exactly the point at which Tuomas' point about internal contradictions in our culture's treatment of animals comes into play). In other words, cultural relativism on its own isn't enough to make people pause before reaching for the hammer. You need some way to show it's wrong. I think I've done that by pointing out how counter-productive the hammering will be in purely practical terms. LeCoq will be even less able to influence the situation, and may have opened himself up for reprisals, both legal and vigilante.

Listen, if I started a thread with

i'm pretty much set on going next door and MAIMING motherfuckers with the TWO hammers the subletters left in my apt....holy shit i'm so mad right now...."ideas please"

I would expect actual advice. And I'd hope someone would calm me down and talk sweet reason, not crank me up to using those hammers.

"Love Will Keep Up Together"

Different things make different people angry (obv) in dif ways! When you're angry at something as immediate and in-your-face (and unnecessarily occuring) as a maltreated dog outside your window, for instance, how much patience do you have to gather all the socioculturally related facts you can plus psychoanalyze your own reactions, and present your case at a mutually determined time? Well, we might get patient and do that but that initial "fuuucck i want to kill someone" feeling is pretty strong. We make judgements all the time, we get angry - LC may have smashed some stuff but he didn't actually hurt anyone - geez, he even posted about it here to vent, and said he was going over to talk.

Being angry isn't always such a bad thing. Sometimes it really gets the job done.

Thunder Road

ah it's wrong. Momus said so, case closed. we can all go home now and beat our wives!

Jesus, Nick, let it go--you're being an IDIOT. Please take your 'cultural gadfly' shtick to a thread where it actually makes some sense--and I say this as a FAN. Nabisco, as usual, OTM. And when Ned points out that you believe everything you read, he's clearly referring to your theory-damaged way of looking at this practical situation, which you're approaching this like an undergraduate English student rather than a 40 plus minipopstar who has lived a little bit. Why is it wrong to ascribe evil motives to clearly evil deeds (i.e. torturing a dog for no clear purpose)? I mean, you do it to George Bush, right?

like, "i saw a guy on the street and his arm had been COVERED IN PLASTER. and some mean fucker had STRAPPED IT TO HIS CHEST. oh the humanity!" etc

So ethics is "theory" now? Even if we set the ethics aside ("Love thy neighbour" etc), I'm utterly amazed that people are more focused on encouraging LeCoq to express his anger than trying to prevent him getting into a full-scale war with his neighbours. Presumably you guys would rather have 25 "reality TV" threads in which we all collectively hate on the neighbours and rag about the latest escalation than hear simply that things were resolved in a reasonable and practical way in the best interests of the dog, Le Coq and the neighbours.

What are you saying, that he spent the night in the cells? The neighbours did press charges for criminal damage?

Now, while we were waiting the dude that informed the officer brought up the idea of greeting the dog/car owner with a baseball bat. I think it's pretty obvious that this is just angry hyperbole and not an actual threat. You'd think a musician/poet wouldn't have such a tin ear toward figures of speech.

B-but how many times do I have to say this? Are you thread-deaf? LeCoq actually meant it when he talked about the hammers, and, receiving confirmation from this thread (and "believing everything he reads", presumably, when he asks for advice) he actually took the hammers and smashed shit up. If people meant the hammers as a "figure of speech", well, LeCoq meant them literally, and used them. So, knowing this, I suggest we mean "hammer" when we say "hammer" and "smash" when we say "smash". The tin ear is yours if you continue to ignore this salient fact.

NO WAI

LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT BUDDY

In short, Momus, you sound like Catherine MacKinnon.

It would be a sad day, though, when advocating responsibility made you an American Republican... or Catherine MacKinnon. After all, responsibility also motivated the people demanding action on the dog's welfare. All I was objecting to was their proposed solution, which helped no-one, and, we now discover, was "a figure of speech". For everyone except me and LeCoq, apparently.

It's high time we ask those who don't know a fucking thing what they think about the things they know nothing about.

-- Orgone Girl (orgonegir...) (webmail), May 23rd, 2006 11:05 AM. (later) (link)

In the moral battle between a bunch of jerks who won't answer their door, have crap in their yard, and don't do anything for a dog who is obviously neglected, I will privilege the dog until I get more knowledge. If I find out the dog has attacked and killed a small child I'd seriously question why they have it out there, but I definitely wouldn't be as angry. Facts we know: dog has likely done nothing wrong, owners refuse to talk to neighbors. Le Coq did the best he could to get their attention, then brought in the authorities.

We don't actually know this.

rep yr hood Momus - when you describe your own position as "the responsible position," guess what, you're the spitting image of Joe Q. Republican

x-post
True, Dan. I'd like to assume the majority of pet dogs haven't done anything making them deserve those conditions.

If you're going to make a point, make it. You still have yet to explain how on earth you decided that this was actually not an animal abuse situation--there are photos of the dog's conditions on the thread, though it strikes me that you've never been within six feet of an animal from the way you're posting--or what the hell Chinese, gay, or elderly people actually have to do with this. Because it is not a matter of "cultural sensitivity" to say it's ok to abuse any type of animal.

xpost Dan, I'd say there's a good chance we do know that, well beyond the slightest. It was quiet and well-behaved when approached by LeCoq, and statistically it's pretty highly unlikely the dog has actually done anything worse than pee on the floor a couple times, if that.

That really doesn't have anything to do with this though. Just as the owners shouldn't be beat with hammers (they might just be too stupid to know they were doing something wrong--this happens a lot in animal neglect cases. People take in street animals and think they're helping them but they have no idea how to care for an animal and it ends up sickly and in poor conditions. See also: animal horders), even a very naughty dog shouldn't be starved and left out in the rain with nowhere to even sit.

xpost haha mark and mike :D

Ally, my only point with that is that we don't really know anything about the dog beyond it being cooped up outside in the rain. It could have been malicious neglect, unintentional neglect, malicious punishment, etc. Also, and I don't make any pretenses at being a dog expert because I've only ever owned one for about 20 months 24 years ago, I don't know if the dog being calm when Le Coq approached it means anything.

Do I want to open the "there are different levels of abuse, not all of which warrant destroying other people's property" can of worms? It just occurred to me but, since I'm on the Internet and not actually at the scene, I have no idea if I would react as strongly to the situation as Le Coq did. So I probably don't. So I won't. Heh.

Enrique: Like I said before, I had to stare long and hard at the picture to see anything besides the trash can! I think I need to readjust the contrast on my monitor.

miele kitty, I'd be willing to go head to head on it, unless you've lived on a farm, like I said. I'm pretty appalled that someone who clearly has utterly no experience with animals feels free to come on a thread and announce all about animal abuse, but whatever. That's his "thing," except usually he does this with movies or entire cultures, not with actual living creatures.

xpost Dan, the thing is that I'm pretty sure you're not hampering to get some pets any time soon, so it's ok that you think animals belong outdoors all the time, even dogs.

Momus, as always, has said a lot that is insightful and intelligent, but challenging to knee-jerkers and pc bores. He is also very humorous. It might be worth you re-reading him with your Momus-hate filter turned off. I think you'd like him then.

The other thing is that when I had pets I lived out in the country, not in the city, and all of the pets we had (mostly cats) were essentially free-range animals who were also provided with basic shelter in the form of little houses and our garage. I have no intention of getting a pet because 1) my wife is allergic to any pet I'd like to have; and 2) I've lived with a roommateswho had an indoor cat and it was the biggest fucking annoyance in the world, mostly because it kept trying to kill me in my sleep. There is nothing more traumatic than dreaming someone is trying to smother you with a smelly pillow and then waking up to a fucking CAT ANUS on your FACE. I still don't know how he was getting the door open. Fucker.

Also Momus does this with living creatures all the time, only usually it's confined to human beings.

(xpost: I agree with Momus more than anyone else on this thread and I still think he's being a jackass.)

I think this is also way off the mark since I enjoy about a third of the stuff Momus writes, can't quite relate to another third, and find the last third to be contentious crap. Which I think he'd find agreeable since he attempts to challenge perceptions. I just think his arguments were crap here and it's valid to call him on it.

yeah but Enrique you gotta admit, Momus has spent a lot of time in Japan, so he would know about this sort of thing

I am Leopold AND Loeb. But I have the sweet heart of Clarence Darrow (in a box, tucked away in the freezer).

I was fine with Momus's hypothetical situations, other than the fact that he immediately assumed that LeCoq's judgement was not sufficient to determine whether the neighbors were misunderstood or just jerks.

again this seems like another case of bashing momus and not his post. he didn't "immediately assume" anything about Le Coq - he first chimed in after a long string of posts urging him to use the hammer. if more people had been like beth, saying "call the cops" or "steal that dog NOW," my guess is that momus would've posted very differently, if at all.

Contrary-to-fact conditionals mean nothing to me.

So ethics is "theory" now?

Peter Singer to thread.

In a thread filled with surprisingly great things this is my favorite.

"LeCoq will be even less able to influence the situation, and may have opened himself up for reprisals, both legal and vigilante."

"But... maybe we aren't hearing from LeCoq for a reason"

"I'm also highly disturbed that people on this thread knew LeCoq had a previous conviction, and still told him to "maim"."

"And so has LeCoq [disappeared], bit worried about him."

-------

I love how Momus is all too eager to assume that LeCoq has met with "legal" or "vigilante" consequences, based on the sole evidence that LeCoq isn't posting frequently. Nice way to erode the intergrity of someone not present to defend themselves.

Perhaps LeCoq's not posting because Momus has turned yet another thread into his own personal litter box.

Shit, it's the fuzz. You'll have to pry my happer from my cold damn hands. Fre LeCoq!

Thats all he had to say. And on that, I'dve agreed heartily now I think it over - hammers and shouting and bashing would not be right, were that to be the situation.

Thing is we don't know do we? I got the impression LC knew his neighbs were sketchy druggy types who needed an arse-booting. He gave that impression with photos and descriptons. Thats probably why people agreed and encouraged him. No one's been bashed up or played vigilante out of this anyway though, so really who cares.

Interpretation--LeCoq has been feeding the dog for a while, he has been attempting to talk to the owners for a while, and they have left the dog outside for approximately a week.

Based upon this interpretation of his original post, seems perfectly reasonable to me for him to go off.

I'd marry my dog if I could. But I already had her fixed.

Also she's approximately 60 in people years, and I'm not down with silver foxes who are actually closely related to foxes.

Punishment for crimes enacted against dogs should be meted as strictly Hammurabian x 7. An animal bred and raised to trust people; to be dependent on people; kept and abused (or neglected) in any willful or criminally negligent manner should force a Biblical wrath laid upon their owner's brow for the length in animal years of their punishment. Given that dog-life / people life ratio is appprox 7:1, each blow unto a dog should be repeated seven times or on seven of the owner's children.

Also: suggesting some illicit 'cognitive-dissonance' between the concept of animal-for-pet and animal-for-food (as upthread) is a bizarre and specious argument. It ignores the significance of socialization and the construction and conception of family.

My gran is the same. Pity she abused my father in the process. Her priorities were not really that great: first the bottle, then the dog and way down on the list my dad. Bitch. As a result I immediately am weary of people who put their dogs first. I know it's wrong, but given the past... Still, I'm extremely happy LeCoq defended that doggie. Man, that picture is just.... so extremely sad.

That's a long-winded way of saying "he likes to troll people."

You clearly downloaded the thread then never got around to listening to it, Mickey.

By the way, no angry screeds were written against you, I simply expressed the opinion that you work for the RIAA, or will soon.

link plz

"Here's what happened to the dog - the cops came and inspected the situation, threatened to fine the owners and call animal control, and promised to check up weekly that the dog was being taken care of. Immediately thereafter the neighbors - grudgingly or not, I don't really know - started treating the dog like a prince, walking it constantly (sometimes making a big show of it), and it's never been left out or heard howling since. The neighbors treat me as if nothing happened, as they probably think I'm totally insane. They likely resent me a little, maybe a lot, but their home smells a lot cleaner these days. I'm only subletting here for two more months so I don't really care. It's not a perfect resolution by any means, and not that entertaining, but yo I'll take it."

Nothing like a happy ending, eh?

But yes, I'd be interested to find out what the ultimate outcome was of the situation.

oh and lecoq is probably just gone because after he got all his shit moved into his new place, he probably forgot about this board as he probably has much more important super hero things to be doing.