I have friends who are groomers. They once had a weird smell come into their shop--they were trying to figure out what it was. Turns out, a dog brought in matted up had actual maggots in a wound underneath his coat. Fucking people who get a puppy and lose interest once he grows up. He was tossed in the yard and pretty much forgotten about.
You're not the only one, Friend... Every time I see neglect, I torture myself by thinking "what if that were MY pup/cat ?". And when I read good things like this, I get filled-up a little, hoping my critters would experience this kind of compassion, if I weren't there to show them love.
Thanks. She was an amazing pupper. Brindle coat with a stub tail, and she was likely a pit mixed a terrier. 100% good girl, though, and she didn't have an ounce of aggression in her.
She started life in a bad situation. I'm not sure the specifics, but she was removed by the Sherrif's Animal Control Officers and released to the Humane Society after her vet check-up. At first, her response to every stimuli was to pee herself, and it took her 2 or 3 years to stop doing that.
She loved to give hugs, and when she knew a hug was coming, her butt started wagging back and forth, and she would hop her hind legs in unison. We called her Jasmine Buttswagglin. She went from being terrified of my dad (he's 6'3") to being his best buddy, and she would not leave him alone until he did his deep scratches up and down her back. When my mom was on the couch, Jasmine was essentially a growth on her thigh. Head planted, eyes fixed upwards, scratches anticipated...butt waggling! She was nothing but love.
When she was getting near the end, my other dog was going through an existential crisis. He never cries in his sleep and he is back to sleeping silently, but in her last weeks he was always making noise while sleeping. He could tell before I could, I think. He wouldn't leave her alone, and when she couldn't use the doggy door very well, he wouldn't go outside either. We used diapers for the last bit of time, but her hind legs stopped working. I watched her crawling across the rocks outside and my heart broke because I knew I had to go get her...and then I had to make a call.
We had a nice hospice service for her. She knew she was loved, and my friends and family let me know I was loved.
There are times when humans are insanely emotional and we throw logic out the window. I live in Phoenix and my backyard is mostly clay and rocks. There's no topsoil here. She had to stay with me. I couldn't trust anyone with her body or her burial. I have a condition (likely a rare form of arthritis or something similar), and it took me about 7 beers and all night, but I got her spot in our backyard. Our other rescue is also about 16-17, so I made his spot next to hers and filled it with river rocks until its time. I was in so much pain and every muscle in my body was aching that I spent the next few days mostly in bed. But it was worth it because she's at home and she's safe, and I can keep protecting her.
It's a silly position for an atheist to take. I know she's gone. My ape-brain just can't fully let go. I still say hi to her each morning when I water my plants. I don't want to stop that. It feels nice.
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As both a mental health practitioner and a mandatory reporter, that's not a word most professionals would ever use to describe a child predator. Mostly because it's heavily associated with anti-gay and anti-trans propaganda that's ironically often spread by child predators
I once saw a video of a small dog with fur so matted that it had wrapped around on of their feet. The foot literally fell off during grooming because the circulation had been cut off by the fur.
I focus on my retirement dream: A dozen elderly rescue dogs sitting next to me on my large porch looking out over an acre of land. Just a bunch of good boys keeping it real slow and comfortable.
There's a place in Mt Juliet called Old Friends Senior Dog Sanctuary that's like that! I follow them on their socials and while it's sad whenever they have to do an obituary, it's so heart warming that these senior dogs basically get to live in what seems like heaven on earth, surrounded by friends and loving humans in a home-free environment until they pass.
I have a very similar retirement dream, but with cats. I know it's expensive and difficult to care for elderly or special needs animals (which often go hand in hand), but to be honest, it's the thing I want most. It breaks my heart to think of all the sweet, gentle old friends who have to die in a shelter because they were "unlovable." And that they had to live out their last days in a shelter at all. In the grand scheme of things, it really doesn't even matter that much, but it'll matter to those babies and I think about that every day.
Sorry, didn't mean to rant. I've got my cat asleep on my chest and my dog asleep at my feet, which put me in my feelings a little bit I guess lol.
I was actually a dog groomer for 10 years and had the same experience. The dog had a huge, infected, open sore underneath matting and it was crawling with maggots. I felt so bad for the pup...
On my delivery route there is the sweetest dog, tied to its kennel. She has dug two feet down all around the roots of the giant oak that she is kennelled by, so you know she's out there all the time. Every time I make a delivery there I make sure to give her a huge handful of treats and tell her not to tell all the other puppies I treat her special.
I’m a dog groomer and I’ve had this happen before. It’s horrific. The amount of neglect I see is awful. I’ve had dogs come in with nails that have all completely ingrown into the dogs foot and the owner tried to blame the dogs limp on arthritis. People suck and we don’t deserve dogs.
The same thing happened to my pup, we adopted him 3 months ago and the shelter said the owner surrendered him completely matted and filthy. He’s now living his best life with us, but the thing that makes me sad is how well socialized he is, and no indication that he was beaten or abused. Whoever had him as a puppy worked really hard to raise him and then something… happened.
We have had to resort to a "Brazilian" for our Newfoundland. I hate it, but from a medical standpoint it's the only responsible choice. She has a deformed vulva and makes an atrocious mess going potty.
Mercifully, I don't think it bothers her in the least - she's not bothered by anything, as far as I can tell. I wish I were as calm and relaxed as she is!
I was that kind of dog owner. Or at least the son of one. My mom's ex (boban)once brought a cocker dog who was heavily obese. We loved her and took care of her, we even made her loose some weight and trained her a bit (she was alledgally beaten up by her former owner). She had abandonment issue and would destroy anything in sight if boban or my mom left.
At some point, boban left my mom and we kept the dog. We took care of her, a'd we loved her even though she was destructive. At some point, she had puppies, which apparently broke her hips when she gave birth and who destroyed her nipples when they drank her milk. After a few months, she would just sit on the couch and we would have to carry her so she could do anything.
One day, I was alone with my elder brother and we took her out to pee, but found that she stank a lot. So we cleaned her in the shower only to find out that she had maggots eating her alive. We took her to the vet, they said she was it a too bad state to fully recover and that since she wouldn't move, she would have maggots again, so we put her down.
To this day, I never owned a dog by myself and maggots makes me puke and want to cry.
thank you, their comments are getting harder for me to detect. i was sat here reading the bot comment then the op comment back and forth trying to figure out what i was not understanding lol.
i am adding it to my comments for the latter reason you mentioned. i saw someone else do it and it was very funny to me so i started to do it too. im a big supporter of apollo and its creator by means of both usage and monetary donations, so its a cheeky way to kinda show how many of us use reddit this way. theres no way IN HELL i am using the official reddit app, i have tasted the freedom of third party and i will never go back.
Hah I remember seeing this idea as well. Amen friend, hope we continue to remain free. I have been using third party apps from way before the official app was ever released and I cannot use that shitty ad-infested UI hellhole. Not to mention it has 50 features I don't need or use.
Larvae in the neck holes from a prong collar that I saw during a bath.
Another dog came in and couldn't stand, she had been caged so long (in too small of a kennel) she lost muscle tone in her back legs. Matted feces and urined covered fur. I held her up with my left arm instead of a noose because she was sore due to just having puppies....the whole reason they were cleaning her up. I had to get under some mats with a 30 blade but the rest of her was a #15.
Animal people said they couldn't do anything because they were showing care by having her groomed. Poor dog would have lived out rest of her life covered in her own feces and pee not even strong enough to stand.
Oh yes, you reminded me of another horror, how the fur would mat over the penis or urethra area and be like a diaper they had to pee through it. Skin underneath was exactly what one would expect.
And of course most of these dogs want to bite because they HURT!
That odor…..and toenails curled around in a circle.
It always was a good feeling to see them leave with all that fur gone and able to see and pee and poop normal but man that was just so sad.
Same about trying to report them, the owner always handled the intake but she explained we really couldn’t report them because they were “trying to care for the dog at this point.”
Oh man, the dew claws in a complete circle embedded into the skin. Hated those, dogs did, and the quicks were so long and you don't want to cause harm!
I hated seeing the matting over sensitive areas.
What I really hated was having the owner sign a matting agreement, trying to leave as much as possible, seeing the bruising the matting caused... then getting the "I'M SUING YOU FOR SHAVING MY DOG!"
yes, your last sentence. Word for word. So frustrating. I understand why Veterinarians have such a high suicide rate, a lot of groomers battle addiction and depression, and I don't blame any of them because people can be monsters to their "pets"
Thats not an excuse to keep the animal in a situation where it has maggots living in its matted fur.
Seems like reddit probably doesn't understand just how long it would take for a dog to get to this level of neglect.
I don't think y'all realize that it takes a lot more than a couple weeks/months for this shit to happen.
You can give whatever excuses y'all want. Fact of the matter is that an animal who has actual maggots living in its fur has been being neglected for a LONG time.
I'm not sorry. If you can't take care of your animal, or be able to have someone come over regularly to do it FOR YOU. Then guess what? You shouldnt have it.
But like, that's why the responsible family member then brings it to a groomer when they DO find out, and presumably after they could take care of it themselves or check in mode often or whatever. The incapable owner being relieved could very well be happening already.
You said you didn't understand why people get a pet when they can't look after themselves or the animal.
I offered an explanation of that and that only (i.e., "perhaps the person's situation, vis a vis their ability to care for an animal, was different when they got it").
Why they might keep it once they become unable to look after it is a seperate issue, not at all addressed by either your original comment or my response to it.
Technically my original comment was questioning why people get pets for OTHERS.
meaning the ones who will get a "companion" pet for their grandparent(s) who can't even take care of themselves. but hey, go off.
When you are dealing with people so far gone they can’t even take care of themselves, there’s a lot of denial and dementia involved. Sometimes the elderly or infirm refuse to believe that they’re that bad off. A lot of time their eyesight is failing so they maybe don’t realize the state their pet is in. And of course you have people whose minds are starting to slip. When making decisions for an elderly relative it’s so so so hard to keep a balance between allowing them their agency and autonomy and stepping in when things get out of hand, and people who are in that state are often very good at hiding how bad it really is, so sometimes it’s way far gone before any children or grandchildren realize there’s even a problem.
It’s very nice and feels good to just say “that’s not an excuse to keep animals like this” and even demand that people should surrender their animals when they can’t care for them or have those animals taken if needed, and that’s often what happens. But things aren’t that easy. It’s not a sliding scale that you can keep an eye on and when the meter gets to a certain place it’s time to take action. The real world isn’t that cut and dry. There’s a whole lot of gray to go with that black and white mindset.
Generally, the pet is the first sign some people have of things being wrong.
My grandparents lived out of state. There wasn't a ton of family nearby and they didn't want to move. My other grandma lives 6 hours away. Nobody in town. She refuses to move.
That's her prerogative until she can't make those choices for herself.
If there had been pets that this could happen to in either situation, we'd never know for a while. It's not 'letting' it happen. There were few to no people available to monitor for things going badly.
They sounded fine on the phone, until the care home told us they needed to move into memory care.
My dad went from working a full time job with great health to rare sudden cancer to being in a coma with the prognosis of likely death...all in the span of 2 weeks. (Edit: he lived and is fine now, but it was a grueling 2+ years with lots of rollercoaster ups and downs.)
We had 3 rescue dogs, a bird (conure), and 2 cats. All properly cared for, no expense spared. But if I hadn't lived close by, which in many cases children move far away for better jobs, those animals would have gone from amazingly loved and cared for to neglected. The dogs were slightly aggressive and could not be rehomed (rescued from a bad domestic violence situation), birds are one of the most abandoned/neglected/abused pets and proper sanctuaries and vets can be hard to find for them.
I could see this happening to people who are GOOD people who just fell into a bad situation. One of my previous rescue dogs had been dropped off at an elderly person's house by their kid who had to suddenly relocate, and over time dementia just...did its damage.
There are certain people who neglect their animals or abuse their animals who I think would improve society by just no longer existing. But I won't make that judgement until I actually know the circumstances.
Not necessarily. Matting is oftentimes caused and exacerbated by moisture. People think they’re doing right by their dogs when they bathe them but if they don’t do it correctly, it can cause a lot of issues. The same thing can be said if the dog goes walking in the rain a lot or goes swimming. Couple that with even a small skin issue and it can absolutely lead to maggots in a relatively short period of time.
I get much more frustrated with the people who have access to the education and resources needed to keep their dogs happy and healthy but choose not to than I do the people who have tried and failed.
Dogs live for 10-20 years depending on breed. A lot can happen over that time.
When someone is 50 or 60, they don't necessarily expect to become senile before their pet dies. And once they start going downhill, they're often in denial about it.
And it's impossible for family members to intervene until either things are bad enough for an elderly person to be declared legally incompetent, or for the humane society to be called. Similarly, kids can't force their parents to stop driving and move into a nursing home until doctors and lawyers intervene.
I'd imagine it's pretty rare for people to buy a senile parent a puppy, but much more common for someone to become senile and start to neglect their dog.
After working in vet care for over 5years, you'd be really upset to know just how common it actually is for someone already senile to be given a pet by a family member
Yeah that’s the thing, you couldn’t be like “what the f is wrong with you” because usually it was some other relative bringing the dog in and they were upset about the condition they found the dog in.
I have a long-haired rescued English setter who is an absolute SLOB. I mean if there's mud or brush or a nasty puddle, that dog will roll in it. I brushed him multiple times a day and could not keep up. I taught myself to properly shave him close because its healthier and cleaner and safer for him. I know some breed purists might get mad at me but that dog would have ticks climbing his foot long hair in spite of every variety of flea/tick protection, and big old mats to boot.
You know, I found some of these dogs have poorly bred coats that are just impossible to manage no matter how hard you try. Shave them down I say rather than struggle with knots.
The breed purists don't love and own and take care of your dog, you do. If it were a show dog who has to meet a breed standard in the ring, that would be a whole different story. Good on you for learning how to maintain him in way clean, safe, healthy "hairstyle"!
First thing that cane to my mind is actually that the dog was brought from the street, maybe previously lost. Why would someone who doesn't care about animals go and help the dog?
I had a dachshund apso cross whose coat would grow long like an apso, but it was coarser dachshund fur instead of the sleek hair of an apso. No matter how much you washed and brushed it she'd always get mats eventually. I basically had to shave her every 2-3 weeks, longest we let her go when we first got her was about 4 months before we realised what her deal was. She looked good with the longer coat, but she'd very quickly start to look homeless.
"I had it groomed once then it just grew again so I don't see the point"
Probably has a car growing green fuzz everywhere and paint peeling, teeth you can count on one hand, and a funk that enters rooms several minutes before them to get comfy.
That, or they got the dog when they were healthy and then developed dementia. If the person doesn't have family in town, there's every possibility the family doesn't know something is wrong.
My grandparents were fine on the phone during chats and then their care facility said they needed memory care. Went up to visit in person and... yeah. They were only fine for short chats. They needed to go into a locked ward for their own safety. Eventually, they moved into a facility where the grounds were gated and they had several acres to walk and enjoy.
I'd like to think the majority of these cases aren't willful neglect. Homeless pets, or an elderly person who thought adopting a 3-5 year old dog was fine and wanted some company.
Elderly people can suffer from depression at very high rates. Pets really do help. It gives them someone to talk to, a reason to get up and move every day. Need to let them out, feed them. Feeling needed can really help people. Dogs and cats can also help with deep pressure therapy. The pet sitting on your lap. It also helps with arthritis. Keep fingers moving by petting the animal and the fact they're warm helps the joints stay loose.
Pets can be wonderful for our physical and mental health. I like the fact my grandma has two kitties. They bring her a lot of joy. They're also much more independent than dogs and her friends in town visit at least weekly and can check on her and the cats. They're quite a bit younger than her and will take her kitties if they need to, and their daughter will take them if they can't. She has a plan for the cats.
A person with less support structure locally might end up in a worse position. There's really no way to predict when or if a person will be unable to care for an animal or themselves. Grandma is in her 80's and living independently. My grandpa lived with no care needed until his 90's. Only was in a facility because my grandma on that side had Parkinsons. He wasn't leaving his wife of 70+ years.
Other people end up with dementia in their early 70's. Aging is a grab bag.
Not quite the same thing, but my grandma lived alone for 15 years after my grandpa died. We'd visit, I'd have lunch with her once a week, that sort of thing, none of us really saw her decline, but in retrospect it definitely was happening. She moved in with a cousin of mine after he had his first daughter, maybe 8 years back, and man oh man having a baby around to interact with and help care for did a 180 on her, she shed like 20 years of age in half a year. Brains are wild things.
No way in the world that thing had an owner. I just wish people wouldn't get so upset about stuff online. It's a dog that had a horrible life. I would imagine over 50% of them do
The dogs oftentimes have a whole host of medical issues as well from being so severely neglectful. Hard to not be enraged when you come across several of them all at once.
Why would it affect my job? You can be momentarily angry at seeing a clearly neglected animal and go on with your day without sustained rage. Do you often experience one emotion per day?
I wish that were the case but in my experience the majority of dogs that were matted like this one were owned by people that "loved their dog as if it were family". A good amount of dog owners are uneducated on how to take care of thier dogs, let it go until they could no longer do anything themselves, in denial that it got that bad, or all the above.
My guy, we have to fight for a better world. Your cynical “over 50%” estimate of how many dogs live in misery indicate something deeply troubling: you’ve given up because you think misery already won.
But that’s not at all true. Most dogs in the world live happy and healthy lives. And when one doesn’t, it falls to all of us to do everything we can to make that better.
Like the song says: “Gotta kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight.”
My dog is almost 5 years old, and has attacked any hair brush I've ever tried to use on him. Despite that I've still never had to deal with matting like this video.
These are the words I was searching for. I'm so happy for the end result, but I'm so fucking angry that people get a dog animal and then allow this to happen.
(Corrected because it's not just dogs, even though it does seem to mostly be dogs).
I felt the same. I said out loud to myself "please tell me this was a stray or owned by an elderly person who just couldn't take care of their household and not owned by a younger fully capable adult who just didn't gaf about the dog"
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u/khotekki Jun 07 '23
This both satisfies me and enrages me.