Pictures From a Day I Can’t Forget

I recently read Ben Long’s book, The Practicing Photographer.  A central point of the book is that much of the photography we do is practice.  Frequently we make images whose sole purpose is helping us make better images in the future.  Recognizing this reality helps us manage expectations each time we have camera in hand.  It allows us to lower mental barriers that keep us from purposefully tinkering and practicing in order to improve our craft.

As often as weather and schedule allows me, I take walks.  It is a peaceful pursuit that clears my head, stretches my legs and hopefully keeps a few pounds off.  Street walks or walks in nearby park settings are the go to for me.  They are also where I make the majority of my pictures.  Not always the majority of what I share, but it sometimes surprises me the number of images I show people from these excursions.  Last Thursday I was out for such a walk.

Southeastway Park, at the far corner of Marion County, is one of my favorite spots.  It has the longest closed loop path of the Indianapolis parks that do not charge admission.  I normally take the 2.5 mile paved loop, but on this day I began with the wooded trail back along Grassy Creek before returning to the paved path.  On these walks I take my PEN-F with the 25mm, F1.8 lens.  It is the perfect companion.  As I walked, my eye for composition was finding a flow.  It felt like I had created some solid images.

As I drove out of the parking area, I saw two men and two dogs engaged in some frantic activity.  I realized that two dogs were in a fight and the men were attempting to break it up.  As I rolled closer to the scene I realized the men were overwhelmed by the dogs.  I stopped the car, got out and rushed in to help.  For more than 25 years I have had more than one dog.  Periods of establishing a pecking order have come and gone.  Fights can accompany those periods.  From these fights, I have a collection of scars and a distorted finger from a broken bone, the remnants of the times I dove in to separate my dogs.  Rushing in for me was instinctual.

It was getting out of hand.  One of the men was 79 and while robust in youth, he was frail in this moment.  His dog, a shepherd mix weighing at least 130 pounds was the dominant participant (canine or human) of the fracas.  The other dog, a herding mix of maybe 40 pounds.  His owner in his sixties and panicked to a state of being less than helpful. 

The shepherd had the smaller dog by the neck.  It was a dangerous situation.  I pulled on the big dog’s collar, it was a choker with points on the inside that embed with pressure, but the dog was also obese, so the points were not offering much in deterrence.  The other men tried to reach in and separate the dogs, but that is a dangerous place for fingers to be.  Another man ran up.  He started to kick the large dog, but to no avail, it wasn’t letting go. 

Finally, some combination of actions were effective and the shepherd let go.  As she did, she fell back, I stumbled with her and lost my balance.  In that split second the collar slipped through my fingers.  Everyone had relaxed, no one had stepped between or lifted the other dog up and away.  The attack renewed.  This time the older man did not move in.  He sat on the ground with a bewildered look on his face.  This was a dog he did not know. 

I heard shouts about a gun.  The other dog’s owner yelling “Shoot it, shoot it”.  The other volunteer “No!  You’ll hit one of us”.  I looked over at the old man.  He had drawn a small hand gun.  I let go of the larger dog.  He shot her through the chest, longways, angled from behind, and then again, another shot through the chest.  The other volunteer screamed “Stop! Stop, you are going to hit him,” referring to the owner of the smaller dog. 

Pepper, the large shepherd, let go and sat on her haunches.  She did not cry out though her face was bewildered in pain and agony.  The other men jumped back, I screamed at the old man, “It’s suffering, put it out of its misery.  In the back of the head.”  He took a deep breath, measured the shot and took it.  It was clean.  His only life companion fell to the ground, two single twitches from Pepper’s right rear leg and it was over. 

The old man begged for someone to get the oxygen from his car.  He confided that he had been sick for some time, confirmed this morning it was lung cancer, most likely terminal.  To clear his head he wanted to take Pepper for a walk, like they had done when they were both younger and he was stronger.  As they got out of the car, the smaller dog had barked, perhaps Pepper perceived a threat to the old man, bolted and the leash slipped through his fingers. 

I ran to the park office, eventually a fire crew showed up as did a Park Ranger and animal control.  Everyone had a role to play and forms to be filled out.  The ranger, with police powers, asked the old man if he had a permit for the gun.  When he said no, the ranger rolled his eyes with a sad disappointment.  The old man’s day which began with a terminal cancer diagnosis, featured having to shoot his companion animal, was now going to end in arrest. 

The other dog was bloodied, but the worst possible outcomes were averted.  She was breathing freely and her jugular still in tact.  She had surgery ahead of her.  Her owner was in store for a hefty bill, but they would move on together.  The old man was now on his own to face the disease that will likely claim his life.

By now you might have figured out this post isn’t about photography.  It is an observation about life, and how far too often, it sucks.  It can be lonely, sad and completely without compassion.  There’s a reason why Steinbeck wrote Of Mice and Men, Hemingway - The Old Man and the Sea.  They knew the cruelty of life.  Having seen it in the lives of others, they wanted us to be more attuned to it, so that we might be more compassionate.

The scenes and images of that day, now five days ago, have not left me.  I am still troubled getting to sleep.  I think of a lonely old man, struggling with having killed a companion, his comfort in this time of decline.  It hurts me to think about him.  What’s more, with it comes anger.  Pondering how with such endemic pain in this world, we so often are dedicated to creating more for others, and ultimately, more for ourselves. 

There is a state of reconciliation and forgiveness destined for us.  But as scrooge discovers in a Christmas Carol, between us and that place is a passage of awakening, realization, guilt, pain and profound sorrow that judges the choices we have made.  Through this path we must also pass.  A journey made longer by our pettiness in everyday life, when we heap suffering on those whose burdens we cannot know.  I wish my eye for spotting the suffering of others was as good as it is for composing images.  Photography is not the only thing I need to practice.