5-11-11

Today was by far one of the most interesting days I’ve had in a long time. I don’t even know how to feel about it, really.

Chrissy, Sophia and I went downtown, to North Side with Chrissy so she could apply for classes at CCAC. Afterwards, we walked along the river by Heinz Field and the Science Center, since it was a beautiful day out.

Shortly after this picture, we were walking back towards the bridge, and saw something in the water, washing up on the shore with the waves of the river. At first we thought it was a dead pelican..and then a pig, but after we got a better look at it, we realized it was a dead..dog. It was gruesome and without going into too much detail, you could see it had begun to decay and bones were protruding from its lifeless body.

It was disgusting and we contemplated what we should do, because we didn’t want to just leave it there, on the side of the river for everyone to see as they walked by. It was not a pretty sight. We got many weird looks as people who walked by saw what we were looking at. Some looked grossed out, some ..laughed. In fact, one man was walking by and made a comment about it looking “like a dead baby wrapped in a blanket.” It was a really unnecessary comment and just made us all angry.

We managed to get it fully out of the water, and onto the shore with sticks. Chrissy, being brave and mighty, ran and found a plastic bag and we tried to get it into that so we could dispose of the body. However, we couldn’t get it in the bag easily, so Chrissy asked some people walking their own dogs for a bag so she could cover her hands with.

A “kind man on a bicycle” (That’s in quotes because it’s how we all described him when we were interviewed..but keep reading, I’ll get to that later.) Anyways, he stopped and asked us what we were doing. He told us how awesome he thought we were for trying to put it out of sight, and that we “were bringing tears to [his] eyes” and “[his] sister would be very proud.” He offered to go look for something that we could use to help us. He rode away on his biycycle and came back about two minutes later with a pink,girl’s jacket he’d found in a trash can nearby. (Let me mention that there were no garbage bags in the trash cans either.) 

So again, Chrissy, taking the matter into her own hands since Sophia and I were a bit nauseous from the situation, put the doggie bags over her hands, and rolled the corpse onto the jacket, so she was able to pick it up with the dog inside and get into the trash can.

We even tried calling Animal Control before we had moved the dog ourselves, but because it was after their work hours, they said there wasn’t anything they could do about it today. So we instead, we did something about it.

As we were walking away to go wash our hands, we caught a glimpse of something else in the water; another dog. We thought that maybe the first dog had been dead previously and someone threw it into the river to discard it, but since we saw another, I can’t see how it could have possibly been an accident. Someone dumped those dogs in the river is the only conclusion we could come to.

So we called Animal Control twice more and they still said there wasn’t anything they could do about it tonight, regardless of the fact that we’d found another still IN the water.

Turning elsewhere, we decided to contact the local tv station KDKA to report our story. We were asked to take pictures of the corpses, because the station wasn’t able to get a camera crew on the site. We took pictures of the one in the trash can, although I will not post them because they are simply too disturbing. We walked along the riverside again to try and find the other so we could take photos of it too.

While we were looking for the one floating in the river, we spotted the Animal Control van and stopped them to tell them about the situation. Still, they said that there was nothing they could do, for the one in the trash can was now the garbage men’s responsibility or whatever. And that the one in the river, well, there was just nothing they could do about it either. That honestly, really shocked us and I’m severely disappointed in Pittsburgh’s Animal Control.

KDKA asked us to come down to the station to be interviewed. We told them the whole story, although we were kinda nervous while the camera was rolling. Off camera, we were a lot more talkative and comfortable, so they filmed us all together this time, instead of interviewing us seperately.

It should be on the news either tonight at 11, or sometime tomorrow. I’ll record it or something and have it posted here so anyone who’s interesting can see it.

So that was my night. Very different from any other I’ve had.

I’m tired and need a shower because I smell. I’m going to go do that right after this is posted.