To give our boy Sully a proper send off.
Waikato
Sully was killed under terrible circumstances and now my family need the money to get him cremated. It is costly, but his other doggy family members were given the same send off and we would love to be able to do the same for him. Any donation is helpful - even just a few dollars!
You read about how our poor boy passed away below.
For Sully - a long read but stay with me if you can ❤ I debated posting this but have decided I need to for his death to not be a waste. Plus the Stuff article is half lies. Please share this and keep your loved ones safe.
I've always said your dog would die for you without hesitation or a second thought.
Which is what happened to our best friend, Sully, on 16th August 2018. My parents, out of the goodness of their hearts, let my eldest sister and her 9-year-old son stay at their home due to the fact that she was on bail (with 24-hour curfew) pending drug related charges and had nowhere else to go. Although she had let my parents down before, they didn't want her son to miss out on time with his mother so they set clear boundaries about her living there and tried their best to go about their normal lives with their own 2 younger children. The police would turn up regularly to check that my eldest sister was at my parents and they knew my parents have 4 dogs so it was wise not to sneak up on them.
Then, on 16th August our family home was destroyed. The armed defenders, with the help of police, stormed our home because my sister had a wanted criminal at the house without my parents knowing. My mum turned up later with my 13-year-old sister without realising what was happening and begged the police who were standing guard outside the property to let her up so she could make sure her dogs were okay. But they said no. They assured her the armed defenders wouldn't hurt her dogs, that "they handle situations like this all the time".
Eventually, the armed defenders came out of the house and left. Then, an officer came to mum and told her sorry and pointed to a small, lifeless shape on the lawn with a blanket over it. They told us it was our dog, Sully. He had been shot and killed. Why? Had he viciously attacked an officer with intent to kill? No. Five men in armour, masks, weapons and an enormous police dog came through our back door and I know without a doubt that the four dogs in our home would have been terrified. They are not fighters. They've never aggressively attacked anyone. They sleep on our beds, go everywhere we go, love children and any type of affection. What they don't love, is strangers coming into their home with aggressive intent. So, our boy Sully, probably less than half the size of the police dog, did what any good guard dog would do in this situation; he protected his family. He fought with the police dog, an instinct that any dog on this planet would have if they weren't completely scared. I have seen many dog fights in my life as I’ve worked with rescue dogs and have broken up plenty of these scraps. It only takes two people with minimal strength to break them up, especially when one is as small as Sully was. But instead of showing a tiny shred of empathy and breaking the dogs apart, the five completely protected armoured men stood there, while one of them shot and killed Sully, right in his own home. They stepped over his lifeless, bleeding body and went to get the only thing they cared about - their perp. And then they left. There was pepper spray throughout our house that eventually got into my 9-year-old nephew’s eyes and throat. It was all over our surviving, terrified dogs. People who only wanted to help, were left with nothing but destruction.
So why is murdering our family member okay? Why is their dog, who was in no mortal danger, more important than ours? Why is it us who is punished for someone else’s mistakes?
Maybe it was wrong for my parents to give my sister a chance. Maybe if we could have been there at the time instead of the police purposely waiting for my mum to leave the house to storm it, this wouldn’t have happened. Or maybe, perhaps definitely, the armed defenders could have stopped and considered the life of a dog who had so much more love and kindness to give and cared about more than just criminal justice. Is this something that happens every day in New Zealand? Are they not trained to handle scared and frightened dogs which they probably encounter daily when barging into people's homes? The police had been to our house dozens of times and KNEW we had four dogs there. I completely understand they needed to catch this criminal and the fact he was even in our family home makes me sick, but I believe that a lack of any empathy led to this tragic incident. If they didn’t have guns, what would they have done? No doubt used a simple, non-lethal way to break the dogs up. But no. Guns are much quicker and easier for them. I believe they used pepperspray but that would not be enough to stop a scared dog with pumping adrenalin!
If you had ever met Sully, you would know he didn't have a malicious bone in his body. He was the gentlest soul I have ever known and with his dying breath, I know he would’ve thought that he was protecting the only family he had ever known.
So, with our dog’s blood cold heartedly left on our porch and a lost best friend we will never get to walk with again, play with again, cuddle again or even see again, I ask you this: Is "getting the job done faster" more important than taking a minute to break up a dog fight (CAUSED by the police intrusion) to save a member of someone's family? And if the police can't show a spec of understanding in a situation full of people who have done nothing but help, how can they ever expect us to trust them?
You may say that the police were just doing their job.
But so was our boy, Sully.
Money to get Sully cremated. It is costly, but his other doggy family members were given the same send off and we would love to be able to do the same for him.
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