My Bio Book, Episode 2

My Bio Book, continued

Episode 2:
The Norm:
Over the years, I’d personally stretched out miles of dogs in that seemingly infinite line. The last three years, at Everett Animal Control, I was personally killing about a ton of dogs and cats a month. That was because I was very good at it, and it was easy for other employees to leave it to me and later, Bonnie and me. After the animals were killed, we loaded them in a giant aluminum bin on industrial wheels and pushed it to the eponymously named ‘Dead Room’. Then they were dumped in old oil drums to await the rendering plant or landfill.[1] I knew the line would never have an end based on the contemporary rules and models of ‘humane-groups’. Since my introduction to the humane industry, years before, I had seen no change I could statistically trust. Of the four shelters I worked in, Everett was the worst I had ever seen. Yet don’t think our shelter was at the end of the spectrum. The numbers were pretty typical. My optical illusion triggered an unspoken oath to rise upward to my brain.

I swore I would never do anything to make that line increase and do whatever I could to shorten it. I’ve been holding true to that, ever since. This book, and the million or so words I have written for publication, are in keeping with that. I don’t lie. I don’t fib. I don’t even stretch the truth. I underplay my own accomplishments. That’s a family thing I learned as a child. However, there is an old saying – it’s not bragging if you did it. In this book, I tell it in a way that remains true to those dogs lying on a cold, concrete kennel aisle. Period.