There was a bloody disaster in Barriere two weeks ago.
No, I’m not getting colourful in my writing, but I am describing the great loss of blood that was instantly forthcoming from a much loved canine when she stepped on a broken beer bottle in the area of Fadear Park and cut an artery in her foot.
According to the very upset senior who was taking her companion animal for its daily walk in the park, “I let my dog out of the vehicle, intending to put her on the leash. But first she had to run to the area where the parking lot changes into a grassy treed place. Within seconds she let out a yelp, leaving a trail of blood as she came back to me. I put her into my vehicle and looked at what she may have stepped on. I found a beer bottle smashed into many sharp pointed fragments that stuck into the air. One shard had blood on it and was obviously the one my dog had stepped on.”
She went on to tell me that the treasured pet was immediately loaded back into the car and driven the few kilometers to her home. “Once at home we realized that we had to take our dog to a veterinarian because the loss of blood was huge. In a short time, whereever we had taken her in our house the area resembled a slaughter house floor. By the time we had reached the vet clinic in Kamloops her blanket in the car was soaked in blood,” said the senior.
The vet informed the couple that the beer bottle shard had cut an artery in the dog’s foot; and as of press time last week the paw was still bandaged and the dog in discomfort. The owners of the pet are also in considerable discomfort as the bill for treatment was over $300; a large hit for seniors on a pension.
You may say, “So what’s all the fuss?”, or you may even say, “It was just a dog”. But let’s just stop a minute here and think about what happened.
Fadear Park was created for all of the residents, and visitors in the area to have a clean, safe environment in which they can enjoy the outdoors. Whether they are walking their dog, or walking with children, it is a crying shame that folks are going to now have to be watching out for broken beer bottles. Children use the park all the time; they run, play, sit down, fall down, and roll around on the grass in the oval, and all points within the park area. Kids have no radar to watch out for beer bottles, they’re too busy enjoying life and the opportunities for play that the park presents.
“It is not that I want revenge for my dog,” the pet owner told me, “But to get to the bottom of the senseless actions of people who smash or discard beer bottles in the park. And it’s not just us, even the Parks Board say they are having problems with discarded bottles. We see them everywhere. Someone needs to think before acting, but probably that is a pipe dream.”
Is it a pipe dream? Or can the community do something about those who use the parks, the baseball diamonds and dugouts, and sometimes even the fall fair grounds as their own private drinking tavern; where anything goes and responsibility goes out the window?
Whether youth or adult, if you are dumping garbage and bottles in the parks, you are dumping on everyone who resides in the community; but most importantly you are dumping on yourself. Take a positive step for your own self esteem, put the garbage in a trash container and take the bottles back to the bottle depot for a refund.
If you know someone who is doing this, encourage them to act responsibly; and if your suggestion falls on deaf ears, turn them in for littering.