Intervening
While in between homes, I am crashing at a girlfriend’s house on what is known as “The Hill” in Boulder. This morning I took the dog, Rocky, for a little fetch session at the open field across the way from her apartment and came across a young couple and their two dogs. One of the dogs was a playful, female lab mix, and to her owner’s discontent, she followed Rocky around (a leash would have been an obvious solution to the problem of a playful puppy, but that was the least of this young man’s issues).
After not responding to calls, screams and cursing, the young man picked up the puppy by her extra skin and threw her. She landed on her feet and trotted along toward the car as he said to me, “she has to learn the hard way”. I was dumbfounded, at a loss for words, thinking about how to confront this man who clearly should not own a dog, let alone two. The sound of screaming woke me out of my confused trance.
I won’t go into detail, but the young man put the dogs in his car and yelled at his girlfriend to relinquish the keys while he cursed at her and slammed on his car roof. The dogs looked un-phased, as if this happens all the time. The screaming went on for a minute before I intervened; now thinking of the safety of not only the dogs, but this young, barefoot girl.
“You need to cool down”, I said to the man. He looked at me with rage and told me to stay out of it. He called me a “pretentious Boulder f*ck” and screamed at his girlfriend for making such a scene as to get people like me involved. I begged the young woman to take the dogs and come with me, let him go, I could bring her home and bring her to safety. She turned back at me and cried for her boyfriend to calm down. He popped the car into neutral and rolled it down the hill with the dogs in the backseat, the young, barefoot girl chasing after the car. I followed at a safe distance with the police on the phone.
I’m not asking for some sort of medal of honor here, but telling this story as a means to illustrate that these things happen all around us all the time and it’s important to not brush it off. This sorry, low-life, excuse of a man who feels good about himself after physically abusing a dog and verbally abusing his girlfriend, is capable of things that I am glad I did not see. If he is willing to make such a spectacle, be so violent in a public venue in front of other people, I cannot imagine what he does behind closed doors.
The cops did come, they caught up to his car just in time and he pulled over willingly. I flicked him off as I walked by and watched as the dogs were put safely into a K-9 unit vehicle.
I may have saved a dog’s life, I may have ruined this young man’s day, or month, or clean record. I don’t know what the consequences of my actions are, but I know that I did what I felt that I had to do at that precise moment, and I think it was the right choice, I hope it was the right choice. I hope those dogs and that young girl are safe.
Featured image courtesy of Boulderpolice.com