That Memphis Kid Speaks Out

It has now been a year since Jeff Coltenback committed the "crime" of demonstrating to the world how domesticated and child-friendly the pit-bull Memphis had become after one week of training. In response to Jeff's evidence, Karen Lore accused him of endangering the public and ordered Memphis back to the Bloomfield Shelter before having him shipped to South Dakota for retraining -- in spite of pleas from 50,000 petitioners from around the world. There have been no details on the training or updates on the "retraining" in over 10 months. On Thursday, Brenda McAndrews, the mother of the nine year old girl whose photo unwittingly precipitated the affair has posted an unsolicited update of her own:

Today, out of the blue, my daughter asked where Memphis was. I had to pause & think about what I was going to say to her. She's only 10. Only 1 year older than when she met Memphis and knew right from that moment what a wonderful dog he was. She was never scared of him. She never felt she was in danger. A 9 year old child knew then what "trained" professionals were suppose to know. I keep thinking of the saying "out of the mouth of babes". 

That was a moment when it applied. I had to tell her that he was supposedly in SD. That he was supposedly getting rehabilitated. That when he was ready he would come home to Jeff and Diana. She just looked at me like I had just said the craziest thing ever. She was right. This has been -- and still is -- insane. There are really no other words for it. 

To this day, we have the picture of Memphis taped to our front door, that our son put there. We see Memphis everyday. We never forget him. We hold on to hope that he is alive and safe. Most importantly, he is loved. If he can't be with his family, please let him be with people who love him even half as much as Jeff and Diana. Please, let him come home to where he belongs.  

This Monday's town council conference meeting has  shelter updates on the agenda.  We can only hope that at least one of those updates will be from South Dakota.