As if a spigot of curs had been turned on, and for a minute or two is seemed it wouldn’t stop. While some were deformed and limped pathetically, others ran and leaped with obvious canine glee. So beautiful, despite their imperfections, so happy to be free, their animal energy sparkling in the morning sun as they joyously circled the front yard in a festive, pack-like frenzy, jumping and yapping with excitement and relief.
And guess what? They ignored the gaping hole at the gate!
Who knows, perhaps they were running too fast to see it, or maybe too frightened to escape, or possibly, the dogs wanted us, mere humans, to understand they could handle the responsibility of their new found freedom. Round and round they went, dozens if not hundreds of them, and in the chaos and confusion I began to feel an overwhelming guilt, recalling my capricious exercise of everyday human authority as I separated the dammed among animals from the few who were saved, hugging my dog Buddy, for example, before I set off to Whole Food Market where I’d buy a slab of dinner beef sliced from an invisible organic steer or a fresh and succulent organic breast off an invisible chicken. And while one part of me reasoned that dogs cannot think, and therefore were inferior to us humans, another part understood that my human reason itself was worth little in the long run, it can’t be - not with the evil created by reasoned thought; and I began to argue with myself, wondering whether the fullness of a dog being a dog, and not thinking, makes dogs closer to God than we humans; if indeed there is a God, who back then I doubted.
Benetiz and the detectives froze, absolutely fascinated. Even Mildred Trivel was quiet for a few moments, thank the Lord; staring in wonder at dogs who were way too big, and miniaturized Shepherds and Collies, terribly deformed Boxers with huge goiters on their backs, a Beagle with two heads, one of those wiener dogs, I forget what you call them, elongated with three tails, puppies with flippers instead of paws or spouting two long purple tongues, or one large, friendly eye, a Great Dane with a penis that dragged on the ground, and a beautifully groomed Poodle with two assholes and a twin set of genitalia who Asesino must have found her irresistible because he broke away from his handler and began humping the damn thing, running it down and mounting first one port and then the other, until both he and poodle collapsed from exhaustion.