We, the Hunted: Dogs, Resistance, and Survival
“The emotional trauma of being hunted by a vicious animal can last for generations.”
I stood upon the fence until the dogs had reached the cotton press. In an instant more, their long, savage yells announced they were on my track . . . Every few moments I could hear the yelping of the dogs. They were gaining on me. Every howl was nearer and nearer. Each moment I expected they would spring upon my backexpected to feel their long teeth sinking into my flesh. There were so many of them, I knew they would tear me to pieces.
Twelve Years a Slave
The dog ward is quiet in the early afternoons, its charges stunned into silence after four chaotic hours of morning kennel cleaning. In the animal shelter, which is housed in a windowless former bread factory, time is marked by sound and smell. As the sun rises and sets over New Lots, a half-neighborhood, half-wasteland nestled in the outer reaches of eastern Brooklyn, the acrid chemicals of early morning give way to the smell of ripe excrement. The fluorescent lights flicker and eventually dim, and the cavernous halls fill with the staccato cries of dogs realizing they won’t leave their kennels until the following morning.
Kelly is a former dog wrangler who writes on our society's complicated relationship with animals, and its inexorable connections to race and class. Her work has appeared in The Awl, The Toast, Motherboard, and elsewhere.
She loves all dogs unconditionally (and some cats, too).
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