This is a very troubling story that will not leave you happy. I have to warn you, it is a little heartbreaking. It left me with a really bad taste in my mouth.

A few weeks ago in Montana, there was a horrible story about an abused kitten named Mercy. Someone had kicked him, stomped him in the head, and tried to drown him. He had apparently abused this kitten for hours. He was taken to a vet with numerous broken bones. He was then sent to an animal hospital in Spokane where they were forced to put him to sleep because his spine was fractured in several places.

Very sad story.

Wait, it gets sadder.

When a newspaper ran a front-page story on the incident, it predictably created a firestorm of a reaction. There were dozens of posts on that newspapers’ Web site saying the guy should be strung up, etc. Several people demanded to know where the person lived because they wanted to beat the hell out of him.

The guy was not arrested immediately. He apparently told the police he was suffering from clinical depression, but then he also claimed someone else beat and tortured the kitten. The police didn’t arrest him immediately. For two or three days, people apparently showed up at this guy’s door. He apparently received a number of threatening calls. After the kitten died, the police showed up at his door with an arrest warrant for cruelty to animals. With the police standing at the front door, he shot himself.

I hope the whole incident left some of those people posting threats on the Internet thinking long and hard about their actions. The incident has sparked a wide range of reactions. Some people are still saying, “Good. I’m glad he offed himself.” While others say, “people care more about animals than people.” Still others say people care more about kittens than aborted babies.

I have torn feelings about the whole thing. Honestly, I feel more sympathy for the kitten than I do the abuser, I guess because of its pure innocence, but I’m not without any sympathy for the abuser. This was not simply just a jerk. He was a victim in his own way. He was obviously a deeply troubled and ill person who badly needed help and didn‘t get it. He got threats. He didn’t deserve death. He deserved a couple of years in prison — and therapy and treatment.

I think a number of people blew it here. The cops blew it by not taking the guy in for observation when the abuse first happened. He told them he was seriously depressed. The people posting comments online threatening him were blowing it. Their anger was understandable, anyone reading the story felt it, but the online rhetoric got completely out of control. It turned into a weird kind of online mob rule. I have no doubt the abuser was reading those comments and threats.

And frankly, in my opinion, while I think the newspaper was correct to cover the incident the way it did — like I said it predictably got a big reaction from the community and even across the country — I think the paper did blow it by allowing those threatening comments to be posted on its Web site.

There is one hint of silver lining that came out of this. Because so many people felt so badly about Mercy, the local animal shelter received tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from across the country. And at a local “cat day” at the Humane Society, the shelter was swarmed by people adopting cats and kittens because they were touched by the Mercy story.

There was some silver lining. When the story of Mercy first came I out, I posted something on Facebook saying everyone should give their dogs and cats a big hug. I did that day.

On a cold Saturday afternoon in December, a group of 30 volunteers gathers in the lot of a large Denver park. Members of a greyhound rescue group, we are waiting for a “dog haul” from Oklahoma.

Right on schedule, a customized semi-truck pulls up in the parking lot. The load resembles a storage container, only it’s about half as high and lined with six small metal doors on each side. Behind these doors are 21 retired racing greyhounds.

The “processing” begins. The driver comes around — tired and grim-faced, perhaps indicative of the uneasy relationship that exists between the greyhound racing industry and the hundreds of rescue groups that have sprung up across the nation over the past ten or twenty years.

He opens the first door to reveal a large pile of thickly shredded paper. Emerging from the tangle is a skinny white-and-brindle greyhound. The driver quickly slips on a collar and leash and muzzles her. Volunteers mill around, check her body for injuries — there’s a nickel-sized gash on her left rear leg and a long tear on the inside of the same leg. They snap a quick picture for the greyhound adoption website, and read the tattooes in her ears. The tattooes indicate the month and year she was born and her birth order within the litter. In a week or so, volunteer veterinarians will spay or neuter the dogs and give them their first series of shots.

It turns out this first girl to come out is my new foster. Her racing name is Country Girl. After checking her for fleas and ticks, I slip a dog coat over her bony frame and take her for her first walk. I’m hoping she’ll pee but it’s too cold out and she doesn’t cooperate. She’s never been on a walk before, so she pulls this way and that, unsure about what to do. She walks on her tip toes and hops around because the ground is cold and she’s probably never encountered snow or ice before. She’s also never seen a park, a lake, a tree. In front of us, a flock of geese takes flight and she is spell-bound at the sight. However, after just a few minutes, she begins to “shut down” and I have to pull her along.

The foster coordinator I work with is an expert tick-remover so I ask her to have another look. The foster dog I got last summer was covered with more than two dozen ticks, but Country Girl seems clean. We say our goodbyes and I lift her into the back of my Subaru Forester. Teaching her to jump into the car will be one of my first chores, along with using the doggie door, walking properly on a leash and going up and down stairs.  As we take off in the warm car, she finally pees all over the dog blanket I have in the back, so I pull over, yank out the blanket, put up the backseats and get her settled in the far back where any further “incidents” won’t ruin my car.

The foster greyhound’s first night in a real home is always the toughest. Before this day, Country Girl has spent up to 22 hours a day sitting in a “sphinx” position in a crate. Her stomach and haunches are bald from rubbing against the wires. She knows nothing about the world, nothing about being a pet. Before the evening is over, she has peed twice in the house and has spent at least two hours pacing. She stares at the TV, whines at the cat (she has been tested “cat-safe.”), and sniffs my own greyhounds, who are annoyed at this dorky new kid who doesn’t know how to act.

I’ve got six vials of de-wormer and her first dose doesn’t go down that well. It’s a milky liquid in a large plastic injector and she spits it out as quickly as I squirt it into her mouth. All the greys from the south arrive with worms, ticks and fleas. Retired racers are also grossly underweight — Country Girl probably weighs 45 to 50 pounds — she will gain a good 15 or 20 pounds within the next two months, adding at least 25% of her current weight.

At the racetrack, they are fed a high-protein but obviously meager diet of 4-D meat from diseased livestock. This night she has her first meal of dog food, which will send her digestive system into a tizzy that might last the rest of her life. (After six years, I still haven’t gotten the digestion of one of my own dogs stabilized). I give her acidophilus and stewed pumpkin which will help. She’s too excited and confused to eat much at first, but before the evening ends, her bowl is empty. By tomorrow, when she has settled down, she will begin a period of ravenous eating.

When it’s time for bed, I put her in a large wire crate filled with soft blankets. I turn on the nearby desktop computer and leave it streaming a classical station all night, with the monitor turned on and facing her. Despite these “comforts,” she cries all night long. I get up once at five in the morning, bundle her up in a coat and take her out to the backyard. It is snowing and beautiful out. She runs around the yard, shivering and wagging her tail, jumping up to get her feet out of the freezing snow. Finally, she relieves herself and I praise her lavishly. The first sign of house-breaking!

Country Girl is only three years old so she’s been retired early. Retirement comes when the greyhound doesn’t win enough — that is, when the owner is not making money off the dog. This particular kennel owner has taken the trouble of driving his rejected dogs all the way to Colorado. Many greyhound racing dogs are not so lucky. According to the Greyhound Protection League, “Over the last two decades, hundreds of cases of abuse have been documented including greyhounds that were shot, starved, electrocuted and sold for research. Industry insiders report that this is only the tip of the iceberg.” Those that aren’t killed are sometimes sent to Juarez and other racetracks in Mexico, where the outlook for the a dog is notoriously bleak. Other greyhounds are sent to research facilities and veterinarian schools where they are used for experiments and “training” exercises.

That, however, will not be the fate of Country Girl, this skin-and-bones greyhound from Oklahoma, nor for the other 20 dogs from yesterday’s haul. Today, Country Girl will get her first flea bath, followed up by a towel rub-down and a doggie treat. After that, she’ll pace around the house for awhile, sniff at the kitty, who will hiss at her again, and then she’ll do the greyhound stretch/bow, then curl up on a soft doggie bed for a nap. She will follow me around the house, leaning against me whenever possible — she has already shown signs of being a “velcro dog.” In two or three weeks, an excited family will come along and take her away to her “forever home.” My two greyhounds will jump for joy that the dork that took so much of my attention is finally gone, and I will  feel the loss — as I always do — for a long time after.