"Do you have something against Euthanization?" ~ Erica Moore, Attorney for AC, 10/23/2009

Chester wandered onto our property in Nashville during the summer of 1998. He made the trip down the long driveway, collapsing at the foot of a tall, shady oak tree. He was maybe 12 weeks old, and was severely dehydrated, so much so that he could not lift his head. We figured someone had dumped him at our house, knowing that he would be cared for. There was no other way to explain his sudden appearance.

For the next several weeks he would have to be hand fed, and it would be months before he walked without dragging his head on the ground. He progressed on a daily basis, and our neighbor, an elderly woman named Kitty, took a shining to him. We brought him to visit her each day. Chester was a miracle puppy, and he gave her hope as she herself was battling cancer.

We never did put Chester with the other dogs, because he was slow...and he grew very attached to my husband. He would follow him everywhere as he worked outside every day after coming home from work.

We would learn after the seizure of our animals, that Chester had been one of the first to die. He, along with the other large, older mixed-breed dogs, were considered unadoptable. What that really meant was that they could not be profited from, so their lives were meaningless, and they were killed; just like all of the other dogs before and since who have had the misfortune of meeting up with Hernando County Animal Control.

During the 3 years we lived in Brooksville, we had a FedEx guy who would bring Chester a dog biscuit every time he either picked up or dropped off a package. The last time we saw him, was in March of 2010, a few weeks before we left Florida. He came to pick up a package at my mother's house where we were now living. He knew about what had happened, but when I told him that they had killed Chester, he recoiled in horror.

At that point in time, I was so traumatized and saturated with sorrow, so numb emotionally, that to see someone react in this way made me experience the reality of what had happened all over again. I immediately recalled something Erica Moore, the attorney for Animal Control, had said to me at the hearing on the 23rd of October, 2009. We were on opposite sides of the aisle, at the desks in the front of the court room where the litigating parties sit. She had leaned over to me at one point during the proceedings and said, "Do you have something against Euthanization?"

We, Ms. Moore, I do. When healthy animals are ripped from the safety of their loving homes and brutally murdered...because that is exactly what it was...I do have something against it. And so should you, for the sake of your own humanity...that is if you have any left.

Chester, may God rest your soul. I cannot imagine what must have been going through your head as you drew your last breath, as they chose to take your life from you. I hope that you did not think it was us who let you down. I will forever wonder, but I do believe that we will meet again in heaven, my beautiful friend.