Toby/Joseph The German Shepherd

You don’t have to know much
about this story
your eyes and ears and heart
they tell it all
a German Shepherd
lived out back for 4 years
tethered to a tree
there as a rule

he didn’t get much water
he didn’t get much food
he didn’t know what love was
and his owner was just crude

hed dropped weight down to 60 pounds
mostly skin and bone
his ribs and spine were evident
and of course he’d been alone

imagine it for 4 years
through all weathers he was there
the fleas had taken residence
his body was despair

smothered in these fleas he was
when washed his whole skin bled
suppuration his salvation
he was really left for dead

in a very sorry state
he must have wondered whether
he would ever be released
from his painful tether

his owner said he kept him outside
“for a human he was not”
that I think refers to him
for clearly he was shot

away, a mental nightmare
and just guess what was his fine
25 bucks this bloody sucks!
but really its a sign

that America doesn’t have a clue
this was such wilful abuse
25 bucks I mean to say
the threat of perhaps a noose

might just have got him thinking
what he’d done was wrong
and they were going make him suffer
because, he didn’t belong

anywhere near animals
but he got no ban at all
the laws an ass for certain
its all, going to the wall

the government have shut down
they are following this guy
torment and torture and animal
until the soul does cry

openly on camera it matters not ok
it 7$ a year the fine he got
and that’s no way
what has he learned from that fine
its measly and small
totally ineffective
an insult for us all

he should have been banged up for that
and given a dozen lashes
let him feel what that dog has felt
and rub salt in those gashes

PAWS now have dear Joseph they’ve renamed
so to say
lets hope he gets adopted
by someone who loves the way
he is who loves his temperament
his courage and his heart
and looks after him forever
until death ddoth them part

*Jeremy Shane Temple
Middleton resident