Tears for Lost Pet, Not for Coyotes

Iread Bob Pool’s article “Outcry Over Maiming of Coyote . . .” (Oct. 21), and I cried. It’s something I do a lot of lately.

I’m not an animal activist, just an animal lover. Even if I had the money to own an animal’s fur coat, I wouldn’t. But while the Los Angeles supervisors vote on jaw trap bans and the activists carry on with their animal rights outcry, my family just plain cries.

On the morning of Oct. 14, I found my family’s dog Max in our back yard. Like the coyote in Topanga Canyon, “it was disgusting, really sick.” With my heart in my throat, I choked back sobs and raced down the slope to a mangled mound of torn flesh that had hours before been my Max. Max was 10 years old. For a coyote, Max was lunch.

I loved that dog more than or as much as any friend or relative I have. I don’t want to champion any bloodletting outcry. I just want to stop crying.

I don’t want to hear about a coyote’s pain. I have my own. I don’t live in a rural area. Like the professional killers they are, these animals came into my yard and took a life dear to me . . . so, what do I want?

I want to erase from my mind the sight of a dog I’ve raised since puppyhood torn and gutted and dragged and left dead.

I want my 5-year-old daughter to sleep without nightmares again. I want to believe that the violent end to Max’s life won’t scar her for life.

I want to stop crying.

I want to stop “hearing” the thud of Max’s torn body as the animal regulation officer tossed him in the truck filled with other dead animals.

I want to be able to go into my back yard without getting nauseated. I want to stop “seeing” him and “hearing” him and then again I don’t . . . because, like my memories, it’s all I have of him.

I want to stop crying. I want my husband to stop crying. I want to comfort my family. I want to stop comforting well-meaning neighbors who are as torn by Max’s death as Max was torn by the coyotes.

I don’t want another family to live through what my family is living through.

It’s easy for some, I suppose, to write off the grief of families who’ve lost pets this way. Maybe the activists are right. Maybe their outcry is louder and more organized and therefore more important than mine. After all . . . these are “just dogs” and “just cats.” Maybe we should wait until these “troublesome creatures” attack “just a toddler.”

I know nothing will change. I know the well-meaning activists will continue to be active--just as I know that another family, like mine, will soon feel the bite of the coyote and then, like us, their lives will never be the same.

I don’t want to hate coyotes. I want my dog back . . . and I know that a part of me may never stop crying.

DONNA WHITMAN

West Hills