Why I Kill Dogs

A fictional story in which I attempt to tell the truth.

I have a weird job. I get paid to kill dogs. I go out killing stray dogs, and I take a video of myself doing it, and I post the video online, from my own POV, and people send me money.

I find the videos funny. Most people just say they’re “interesting.”

I used to like doing it, back when it was a secret, just for me. Now it’s more of a job.

Last year I actually had this dog of my own, like as a pet, but I ended up killing her, cause I thought it would make for a good video. It did. I put it behind a paywall. People bought it.

That dog’s name was Lucy, I had her for years, I even lived with her, and I felt bad as I was killing her, but it felt so good to make the video and just be honest for once, I did it anyway.

I actually tortured her for a while, not because I liked to see her in pain, God no, I loved her, but I loved the idea of the video that would come of my abuse more. I thought it was funny, to be honest. I still do. I still watch the video, and all the other videos, and I laugh at my former self.

I know it sounds crazy—you kill dogs?! Yeah but that's my thing... if I don’t do it for a few days in a row I start to get this physical urge, especially when I see dogs out on the street, especially a certain breed of dog, all I can think about is Killing them.

Most people hate my dog-killing videos. But a lot of people seem to enjoy them, too.

I only interact with fans. These are people I can be honest with. Sometimes I meet these people. Sometimes they’re aspiring dog-killers, sometimes they killed a lot of dogs back in the day and they’re re-living the rush of dog-killing through me, sometimes they’ve never killed a dog in their life and they want to learn how to do it.

Sometimes they have a dog they want me to kill. These are the most difficult videos to make. Knowing their previous owner is going to watch, knowing their friends and family might see it too… it really adds to the drama of the whole presentation.

The drama—is there anything more dramatic than this? I try to add timestamps, inject my own unmistakable flair, set the scene, make sure the viewer knows that this is all real, this is a thing that happened in the world, this was a real dog with a home and now it’s dead.

I used to feign innocence, calling it an “addiction,” but in truth it’s always a choice. Truth is I just can’t come up with anything better to do.

My audience has a significant political bent. I mostly ignore it. But sometimes I lean into it, to get more people watching my videos. I have never voted in an election and I probably never will.

I experience real emotion while I’m killing the dogs. And while I’m editing the video of myself doing it, too. I make sure to pay attention to when I’m feeling that emotion, and lean in, so to heighten the drama of the story.

I’ve actually turned it into a kind of TV show. I don’t upload videos with any kind of regularity, because, well, it’s all real, and you never know when you’ll stumble on something good. That’s part of what makes it so thrilling, for the audience and me.

I tried to tell a fictional dog-killing tale once, I mean, I made a fake video in which I undertook a particularly gruesome and emotional endeavor, and I shared it, and a lot of people got angry. That it wasn’t a real dog. But the feeling was there… I was missing the dog I used to live with, my good pet Lucy, the one I killed long ago, and I wanted to say that, but nobody cares, they just want to see more dogs dead.

Most of the people I meet hope I’ll stop doing it, eventually, killing these dogs. A lot of people, apparently, wish I would make videos about something else, anything else, because you really are a talented videographer, man, but I just look at them and smile, shaking my head, because I know they would never have found my channel if I wasn’t Dog Killing Guy (DKG).

IRL I blend right in. I look normal. Girls smile at me on the street. My sisters and parents have mixed feelings about the whole thing. At least I’m being creative, productive.

A lot of young guys watch my videos. It’s cool, I’m getting young guys back into film. Some of them even want to make films themselves. Not about killing dogs, of course, but I’m told my shamelessness is inspiring regardless.

I’ll post the videos even if the dog gets away. Those are some of the funniest videos actually, when I try to kill the dog but the devil runs free.

Sometimes I get attached to those dogs that got away. I still think about killing them, for months after our encounter.

This one dog in Boston, it was so beautiful, drove me crazy, I spent almost a full month of my life trailing this dog around waiting for the right moment to strike. And then, when I finally had it, I didn’t do it. Because I want that dog as a pet. Come to think of it, that’s probably the only thing that could make me stop doing this, making these videos. If that one beautiful greyhound from back in Boston would have just stayed put and let me put a collar on. She actually bit me.

I still want that dog, of course, I think about her all the time, gosh I’m thinking about her right now, I must have thought of her just about every single day for the past 3 months, since I first saw her in April, back when the show was good, yeah ever since I realized I wanted her to be my pet and I didn’t want to kill dogs any more, my videos have lacked a certain enthusiasm and flair that more and more of my viewers can feel, over time.

People who have been watching since the beginning are reaching out to tell me to stop making videos, it’s getting repetitive, but also more people are finding the show every day and telling me they love it, and I’m trying hard to put on a good show, but the number of dead dogs is starting to feel ridiculous, even in this day and age when killing a dog or two isn’t that crazy for a healthy normal guy.

Some guys say I shouldn’t kill dogs, and I call them faggots. They secretly want to be killing dogs too, unless they already passed through that phase of life. It’s a natural biological occurrence, to want to kill dogs like I do.

I will admit that sometimes I am just going through the motions, though.

Sometimes I’ll kill dogs even when I don't feel like it, just to keep the show alive. This has to be REAL, I cannot plan it or even contrive it, it just has to happen, and so sometimes in order to increase the odds of this happening I’ll drug myself, get drunk or high, lower my inhibitions, so that I can Kill another dog, Get that video, Make that money. Feel like a man again.

I used to have a lot of friends before I started doing this. Now I have more. They just know me as a different person. I don’t have to hide from them, ‘cause they’ve seen me kill so many times. The only thing they cannot take is dishonesty.

The show has gotten less honest lately because I really want that greyhound, but I can’t find her, and the aimless pointless search for this one particular bitch is not as “interesting,” dramatically, as the show where I just keep killing different dogs in different places, for sport, until I get caught.

I told someone the truth about this, and they asked me: “Don’t you think you might only be so obsessed with this one particular dog because you were unable to kill her?” No. I’d never seen a dog like this before. She was barely even a dog, to me.

This greyhound, I think she wanted to be mine, at first, she gave me a bit of a chance. But I blew it by trying too hard. Also she doesn’t want to be owned, like most dogs, deep down, do.

But even if this dog were to be my pet, I’d probably just kill her eventually, to get some content for a new video.

See, at the end of the day, it’s not about the dogs, it’s about the viewers. And my future self, laughing my ass off, watching me kill.