The Bitter End (part 5)

Wayne was partying like a rockstar and I was doing all the work. I didn't have the experience to do the work though and the kennel had stopped running. The more it didn't run the more depressed he became and the less he would show up. When he did show up he did nothing but complain and we smoked a lot of dope. The work was getting done because I was doing it (kennel maintenance) but I didn't have the skill yet to get any run out of the dogs.

His girlfriend left him. Then Al sold the kennel. I still feel to this day that Al didn't actually sell the kennel, I think he had someone fronting for him because he gambled too much and owed thousands of dollars around the track. The couple who bought the kennel were out of Alabama and I had met them many times because they were Al's friends. They were good sturdy people but one of the first things they did was to tell me I had to take a pay cut or they had to let me go.

There went the good old days of me being the highest paid help in he compound. The only reason I was the highest paid help was because Al liked to go around bragging, "I have the highest paid help in the compound." I was putting in an astronomical amount of hours (70 or 80 weekly) which is why I was salaried instead of hourly. I stayed because it was my first kennel and I couldn't bear to leave my babies. I had yet to discover the art of kennel hopping: an art which I perfected later on.

They kept Wayne at first. They were more hands on than Al though and they quickly saw why the dogs weren't running. He wasn't doing the work. So they fired him. The new trainer brought his own help with him and I was downsized and I eventually left for another kennel.

Wayne got another job in a bottom kennel. "You can't make a pig fly," as they say in the dog business especially when you have the kind of attitude Wayne had. One day I watched him picking up dogs and I thought to myself, "that is the most depressed person I ever saw." He went up to the kennel to do turnout.

ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE! There were police cars and ambulances and nobody was allowed in or out of the compound. Of course word spread fast...Wayne was dead. He hung himself in the kennel. He died with his dogs.