Mornings are Kinda Lonely Now

Close to every morning I am the first person up. I head down the steps and see our dog, Jake, in his crate on the landing - standing up trying to gather his ball or lovie - whatever he has taken into his crate with him - preparing to head out with me. I open the crate, he bangs into my leg because he is so big and there isn't a ton of space there with his giant crate - and he runs down the stairs. Half dancing, half wanting to get out side. He drops his ball somewhere and runs for the door. The game is you are supposed to find the ball......then pick it up and throw it out the door. Then he runs out after it and dances around it pretending he has no clue where it is. Takes him forever to bring it back. So usually we go back inside and when he has sufficiently pretended not to know where it is........he finds it - and runs back throwing his body against the glass door to let you know it is time to throw again. Now mornings are quiet. Crate is still there. But there is nothing there. No annoying ball game...........no Jakey. Just empty.

I have no idea what day this will post.....my head is a bit muddled.....but last Sunday our sweet, goofy, ball obsessed dog intentionally bit TheKing. It was not provoked. It was not expected. It was not okay. I was standing right near where Jake was laying on the ground. TheKing came into the room and very sweetly began to count Jake's paws. "Look Mom Jake has four feet." I looked over and Jake seemed fine - still laying there. TheKing was standing near, but not over him. TheKing moved a bit closer to count Jakes ears and eyes - not poking or pointing. Jake jumped up without malice - TheKing tried to kiss him - Jake moved toward TheKing and bit him in the face. It was all a split second - no forewarning of a growl - just a quick action. If it had been any other dog and not our sweet, loved Jake I would have easily called it An attack really.

But it was Jake. And our minds wanted to try to reason it away. Only there was no good reason for this.

TheKing was not seriously hurt. He has 4 wounds - 2 deep scratches and 2 superficial puncture wounds. No stitches. A week later the swelling is all gone - the red is gone and the scabs are already brushed off. He will have some tiny scars, but those are primarily due to the fact that he is 3 and keeps butting his head into things and losing the scabs. He is a trooper and we are so happy that the outcome was this simple.

We reported the incident to the vet. Who alerted the Animal Control. We were required to either surrender Jake for a 10 day quarentine or waive that by putting him down and having tests done to his body. We put him in quarentine until we could figure out what to do next. That meant phone calls to many no-kill shelters - who we found would not take dogs with a bite history. We considered training, but we knew even if we put him through training we would never be able to trust him with our kids again. Some close friends asked if they could take Jake in - train him and find another home for him. We considered training him and putting him into a better home - one without kids. Then we were asked this simple question.........

If your child was biten by a dog and then you found out that dog had biten before, but the family didn't keep him because they didn't trust him......but adopted him into a new home - how would you feel?

So if we didn't trust Jake with our own family, friends and neighborhood kids....why would we risk the safety of those we haven't met yet. And our decision was sadly made.

The hard part was - he bit our child - and yet we felt absolutely awful putting him down. Awful. Tears for days. A friend, who is a vet, told me that he wasn't a bad or evil dog - he was just a dog that mixed up where he belonged in our family in a way that was dangerous. It might have been easier had he been evil.

Jake was always the greatest dog EVER. He was obsessed with his ball - if you ever visited you know exactly what I am talking about.........over and over and over - he was never ending with the ball. He used to try to sneak onto the couch by sitting like a human. Butt on the custion, front paws on the floor and his head on the coffee table. Dork dog. He was patient with the kids in general. He loved his crate - sleeping in it every night and never complaining or trying to dodge it. I can remember when we were moving from STL to here. We had him in the hotel in a travel crate....he was way too big for that pop up thing and yet he was a team player and scrunched up inside it looking all happy to be there. He was really the greatest dog ever - I could list far more Wonderful Jake things then negatives.

We took the kids to say goodbye to Jake. That was the Saddest Day Ever. He was in his kennel - they couldn't open it for us. All the dogs there were frantically barking - trying to get our attention. Jake was frantically barking.......probably trying to get us to open the door. He didn't recognize us at first and his barking was not friendly. The kids immediately put their hands over their ears because it was all so deafening and they cried. We all were crying. The people who worked there disappeared - I know that one woman who had spent a great deal of time the two days prior talking to me was crying. Spidey wanted to leave. TheKing wanted to leave. We started to leave and I looked back and there was SuperStar with her hands over her ears.......scraming, "But I didn't get to say goodbye yet!" So I went back and took her hand to leave as she said goodbye. Only she still didn't see it as a done task because we thought we would get to be in a room with Jake, pet him and say goodbye properly. We didn't realize that his restrictions of quarentine would require him to stay in his kennel - with a giant padlock on the fence.

It was very hard. It was impossible.

"But I want Jakey to come home."

"Don't worry TheKing. Jake will always love you. He will always be in your heart."

That is what my oldest son said to my youngest son as we were driving away from the Animal Control building. And he is right. He will always be in our hears. He is in mine right now.