How My Border Collie Got Stabbed

She has died and her home was demolished, a monstrosity now standing in its place that blots out the stars, but the widow Debo used to live in that Hansel & Gretel house-type building, with my bi-level to the north with the flag out in front. Just a few days after my 40th birthday--this would be 1999, we had been living in Burbank for less than three months, ah yes, the safe suburbs--my border collie Barbie (named by Ashley when she was four) went up against the barbed wire fence separating the properties by the garages and barked at a couple of white trash fucks on meth who were trying to break into Debo's garage. They stopped to shut my dog up by stabbing it and then ran off. They might've been the guys who were arrested a week later, but, the justice system being what it is, they are likely on the streets by now. The vet at Scottsdale Hospital was very patient, giving my dog 212 stitches. There were two holes in her torso (I guess) with a rope inside, knotted at either end. I would moved the rope inside Barbie to keep the blood from coagulating. Within a week, the vet removed the rope and said that tampons could be inserted into the small holes as the closed up. I slept on the living room floor with my dog, holding her paw, the Tylenol#3 barely working the first few days. I will never forget her whine, but I held her paw and stayed awake as long as she did. She was four when this happened, she healed and spent the autumn wearing t-shirts instead of bandages as they provided more comfort. Barbie died in June of 2003, just over the age of seven. She had cancer, and the stabbing could have hastened it along by weakening her immune system, or however doctors put things in their taciturn words. Every other dog I have owned has lived to be at least 16. I am still angry that the meth heads had to be so cowardly by reaching through the fence, the fact that Barbie fell over into the grass may have helped the initial bleeding into clotting, but if any good came from it, it was that as least the fuckers didn't end up stabbing a defenseless eighty-five year old with a walker, should she have tried to call them off. I have another border collie now, but I still hear the echoes of those pain-filled whines, optimistic as they were, because at least I knew that Barbie was healing.........