Irreparable

There was a dog, barking madly at me through a rusty chain link fence. Its lips were pulled back, baring his fang-like teeth, its eyes were that of pure anger: dark and gloomy with rage. Its pitiful mane of fur was short, a disgusting color of brown, interrupted by red blotches of hairless skin, bleeding. Scars labelled it’s body, mangling it’s fleshy bones with leftover bitemarks. The dog hobbled and lunged with only three feet, it’s fourth dangling uselessly beneath it’s chest. A chain wound it’s way around it’s neck, between it’s feet, and ended at a stake in the ground.

This creature did not become the way it was on it’s own. Someone, terrible in every way, surely, had trained this angry mutt to hate everything or be beaten, sent into an arena with another creature of innocence and be forced to mutilate it. This dog did not become like this, dirty and bloody, on it’s own. Another cowering creature rests somewhere else with blood stained teeth.

Without thinking I climbed the fence and landed only feet from the animal. It growled and pounced, leaping viciously, but the chain kept the animal from harming me. The dog lunged and yelped and barked in a fearless rage. I stood still and waited.

I saw blood spattering the dirt and snow in the yard around us. It had dried on the chain link fence, and I wondered how the blood had gotten there without others noticing. Perhaps they didn’t want to notice. Around the yard, too, were weeks of the dog’s neglected feces.

I shivered in my winter coat and wondered, too, why no one had brought the dog into a warm place in this frigid weather. Surely its toes, ears, and tail were completely frost bitten; it was astonishing the dog could move at all. Glancing around, I noticed a lack of both food and water. How long had this brute gone without so many basic necessities?

It was hours until the miserable creature, too tangled in it’s chain to pace, gradually laid it’s body on the ground. Carefully resting its head on its paws, the animal still growled low in its throat and stared at me with broken eyes. Still, I didn’t move.

The sun had fallen deep on the horizon when the dogs eyelids began to droop with sleep. Slowly, almost painfully so, I dropped into a crouch and saw no reaction in the canine.

I inched one foot forward, then the other, and the dog lazily opened one eye.

Suddenly, the mutt erupted in a fit of violent snarls, barking and yipping wildly only feet from me. I instinctively threw myself back and sat, watching with wide and frightened eyes, as the animal convulsed with fear and rage. Flecks of it’s spit landed on my cheeks.

“You’re irreparable,” I whispered and its eyes, livid with insanity, screamed that I was right.

I stood and dusted myself off, then climbed the fence and went home.

The next day, I brought two bowls, food, water, and a blanket to the chain link fence.

Author's Note

I don't have my own dog, so I just want to make sure this is accurate as far as how the dog reacts?
Also, does it flow right?
Is the ending weird-abrupt or good-and-purposefully-abrupt because I'm not sure.

Reviews

[matpat]

A few things here, at the end when the dog lay down, the narrator sits in a couch that seems to come from nowhere, maybe you could add a little less detail about the dog and a little more about where the two are placed. I did think it ended sort of funky like but at the same time I also like the way it ended. While I was reading I was getting super sad, no animal should be treated like that. Think your story concept is good and you have a pretty good use of description.