Then Missy hurt her paw, badly enough that she couldn't walk.
We all hope that we will never be tested with a life or death choice, that the cup will pass from each of us. We hope this particularly when we face the choice because of our own recklessness, and our loved ones are facing the outcome. Anthony Ortolani had to decide what to do.
He left Missy in the snowstorm on the mountaintop and made his way to safety. With this decision, he revealed all that we need to know about his character.
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man.
- Mark Twain
So much for Mr. Ortolani. But have no fear, gentle reader, other climbers heard about the situation and revealed their character, too:
Monday morning, eight days after Missy was left, Washburn led a new search team of eight climbers. Chase Lindell and Alex Gelb volunteered to help.
“The thought of a dog slowly dying on the top of the mountain is tough to stomach,” Gelb wrote about his reasoning for joining the search.
The group powered through a snow squall near the summit of Mt. Bierstadt and found the dog right where Washburn had last seen it, on the treacherous sawtooth. They named the dog “Lucky” and took turns carrying the dog down the mountainside in a backpack.
Astonishingly, Mr. Ortolani wants Missy back. The rescuers are suing to keep the dog that they saved. Ortolani has been charged with animal cruelty, but is certain to escape the just sentence that would have been his in a younger and less degenerate age of the Republic - namely, being tarred and feathered.
Worst of all, Missy probably misses her master desperately. Her pack is broken, even though she has had a significant upgrade in human companionship. What captures our hearts about our canine friends is that they see us as we would be seen, not as we are. Alas, this applies even to one such as Mr. Ortolani.
But while Missy will always see him as protector, the rest of us see him as he is: juvenile, reckless, and cowardly when the chips are down. Missy may remain true to her breed and look at him with the eyes of loyalty, as she should. I will look at him with the eyes of contempt, as I should.
No man likes to live under the eye of perpetual disapprobation.Mr. Ortolani is well advised to get used to it.
- Dr. Sam Johnston
Anthony Ortolani sounds like a weak self centered individual. Unfortunately it is far to characteristic of many in today's society. Kids are taught from day one they are number one and there safety and happiness is most important.
ReplyDeletePeople are like grapes: you don't know what's inside until you apply pressure. Ortolani apparently inhabits the shallow end of the gene pool.
ReplyDeleteWell said.
ReplyDeleteI'll be watching this sumbitch. The Judge had better make the proper call.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to buck the trend and say that charging him with animal cruelty is over the top.
ReplyDeleteAre his actions praiseworthy? Of course not! Should he get his dog back? He should be bloody ashamed to have even SUGGESTED it. But I'm just not prepared to say that this particular pattern of facts amounts to a _criminal_ offense.
Matt, I agree.
ReplyDeleteAs I see it, he discarded the dog as if it was garbage, so he loses claim on the animal. If you throw something away and someone else picks it up, you have no right to demand it back.
ReplyDeleteJust my opinion.
Very well done posting, Borepatch.
ReplyDeleteI guess I'm with BobG on this. Maybe it isn't animal cruelty any more than abandoning a dog on street corners, which you see far too often. But wanting Missy back is too far. You've abandoned her, maybe she'll adapt to a newer, better pack.
SiGraybeard @ work
Take Ortolani to town square, invert him on a St. Andrew's Cross, strike him twelve times in the taint with the ball end of a ball peen hammer and release him.
ReplyDeleteMay he be reincarnated as a dependent animal with an owner of his caliber.
ReplyDeleteAnimals are legally property, aren't they? Perhaps the law of salvage should apply.
ReplyDeleteMatt. With all due respect you are wrong.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous is wrong too.
The cruelty charge was the fact of him bringing a dog up that stinking mountain in the FIRST place. No place for a dog my friends. This was no street corner. The dog was injured such that she could not make her way down by herself. Not that she would have left his side had HE been injured. GSD's have hearts of gold, they ARE Gold in the old sense of Men of Gold (from the Hesiod).
The despicable part is him leaving that lovely creature there to die. Alone, with hope in her soul... For He will surely return for me!
I would walk through fire for any of my dogs. Perhaps that is painting it a bit too angelic, though. We never really know what we will do. Although I was a firefighter, so I know what walking into a fire is, and I believe in my heart I would do so. For what would my life be if I did not? A never ending purgatory of self-loathing.
The more I read you, Borepatch, the more respect I have for you.
I recall your love for little One Eyed Dog... She had nobody until she had you.
Cap'n Jan
Some of the rescuers should 'break in' to the Vet's office (the door being conveniently left open - most vets are extremely sensitive to this sort of horror show...). Take her and get her into GSD rescue. Out of State.
ReplyDeleteThe sickest part of this is that she will "recover at the vet's" a very bad thing for a dog who has been so traumatized as Missy. THEN, and THEN!!!! they are going to put her in the county pound until trial.
County pound. That is the sickest thing that they could do - at least put her in a foster home... Someone who would care for her and give her some time. Dogs are amazingly resilient, but there is a limit to how much they can take before they draw inward and never come back out.
Saddened until tears. For a dog I will never know...
Cap'n
Cap'n Jan -- The cruelty charge was the fact of him bringing a dog up that stinking mountain in the FIRST place. No place for a dog my friends. This was no street corner. The dog was injured such that she could not make her way down by herself.
ReplyDeleteThanks for clearing that up (I think I was the anon you were talking to, posting from work over lunch). Puts a whole new light on things.
Cap'n Jan, thank you.
ReplyDeleteThat's one worthless sob, I would no more leave my child, than I would my dog.
ReplyDelete