A week ago, an animal’s caregiver found a female dog, which she’d been feeding and taking care of, bleeding to death with lacerations in her uterus. After rushing it to a vet, she was informed by the doctor that someone must have tried sticking a sharp object in its uterus causing an already existing tumor to enlarge. Anastasia, who was described as a strong dog, was later operated to a full hysterectomy and is now recuperating.
Posts about the accident with pictures of the brutal injures of the dog have been going viral on social media. Word has been spreading that the dog was ‘raped’ by a human being. However, the rape rumor hasn’t been confirmed neither by the doctor nor by the caregiver who, when questioned, stated that she meant ‘physically attacked’ and not ‘sexually raped’ in her Facebook posts.
When our team reached out to the doctor who performed Anastasia’s surgery, he denied saying anything about the dog, being raped “When they brought the dog to me, I told them that she was suffering lacerations in her uterus, and someone must have tried inserting a sharp object in her uterus, but I didn’t mention anything about rape, because even if that had happened, we wouldn’t be able to know that.” Dr. Khaled Aly commented, adding that he examined the dog, a week after the accident which makes it even harder to know for sure.
The dog’s caregiver-who refused to mention her full name- formerly participated in demonstrations against animal abuse, expects nothing less. “All I know is that the dog was tortured, but it is probable that it was also raped, given the fact that these things happened before to other dogs” H.A says, when asking about what the activist would do next she added “Nothing, you just can’t expect to receive your rights in Egypt! 24 of my dogs were shot before, and this abuse isn’t any different” she comments.
Whether its rape or physical abuse, this helpless dog was by all means tortured and sodomized. And this kind of abuse is as mortifying. This desperation of power-practice, of dominance, this ignorance towards weaker creatures, this sickness that no words can justify.
The caregiver’s Facebook posts about the dog received supportive responses but also weren’t joke-free. Some found it humorous to actually bother protecting a dog from such harsh behavior, given that it is ‘just a dog’. And while some people believe we have better things to take care of, this brutality, and aggressiveness doesn’t stop there. It goes further and further, and being short-sighted about the motives of such behavior only makes the horrifying future unpredictable.
Anastasia’s accident is not the first of its kind, we’ve seen videos of dogs being tortured, killed, thrown from roof tops, and nothing has changed. Anastasia’s accident won’t be the last of its kind, as long as we think that issues like this should be marginalized, as long as we believe that evil is okay if it is practiced on less significant creatures, creatures that can’t brag about it to the press, or ask for their legal rights.
We are ignorant when we teach our kids that it is not important if it is ‘just an animal’, ‘if it is just a dog’. Whoever caused this pain for an animal is capable of causing it for a human being if they get the chance.
Anastasia is now at a temporary shelter, being taken care of, getting injections, and having its wounds cleansed.
Its caregiver is currently fetching for a permanent home, so it no longer has to return to the streets.