I've given away too many dogs.
Giving away one dog is too many for some. To give away more than one dog in one's lifetime indicates, to some people, a severe deficiency in character. There will be people who will read this and think the worst of me, think that I am one of Those People who ought not be allowed to have a dog to begin with. If you are one of those people, I assure you, you cannot possible think worse of me than I think of myself.
Every dog I have given away still lives with me in my head and in my heart. They are my ghost dogs, the ones who will never die. Today, on the verge of giving away yet another dog, they stand before me, all in a row, and I feel the need - again - to beg for their forgiveness.
Wilson. Wilson the sweet, good natured Cattle Dog mix. Wilson, the dog I'd fought with my husband to bring into our home. Wilson was a pup fostered by one of the students in the middle school where I taught. She'd brought him in after school to see if one of her teachers would adopt him, and I fell in love. We already had a dog, a wonderful Corgi named Riley, but something about Wilson tugged at me. At the time, I was teaching Where the Red Fern Grows, so I named him after the author - he was definitely a Cattle Dog mix, a Blue Heeler, but he looked like a Bluetick Coonhound to me. Wilson was so unlike most Cattle Dogs - he was of moderate energy, a very laid back fellow, and he took life in stride. When we moved houses, Wilson was there. When we had my first child, Wilson was there. Quiet, gentle, patient - Wilson was all those things.
And then Post Partum Depression hit. It can last years... did you know that? I didn't. And so, one day three or four years after the birth of my son, I found myself sobbing in my bedroom, overwhelmed by the number of small lives dependent on me... we had many pets at that time. I called my sister and asked her to take Wilson from me, and she agreed.
I cried all the way home from my sister's house. We left Wilson with her with toys and food and money for vet bills. It didn't help. I felt like I had violated a sacred trust. and in truth, I had. I felt beyond awful, and deservedly so.
There is a chance, a faint one, that I might have eventually gone to retrieve Wilson from her... but within two weeks, my sister had posted him on Craigslist for adoption, and given him away to another family. She did tell me about it before she handed him over, but at the time, so steeped in depression, I didn't feel I had the right to question what she was doing. For years afterwards, I searched the Internet for signs of Wilson, hoping that his new family had made a website for him, posted pictures of the Australian Cattle Beagle. But Wilson vanished from my life, and I never saw him again.
Pirate. Pirate was most definitely my fault... my fault for doing the research, reading the books and articles, but not listening to my gut instincts. After Riley died, we wanted another dog. We looked through Petfinder, but did not find a dog that met our needs... we wanted a smaller dog, one that would be of moderate energy, be trainable and reliable off leash. Another Corgi would have been perfect, but we couldn't bear to bring in another Corgi. We settled on what was, at the time, the Miniature Australian Shepherd and found a breeder not too far away to visit. She had puppies on the way, and invited us to meet the mother and learn more about the breed.
I should have been immediately suspicious when the expectant mother appeared, and would not stop barking at us. She did not want to be petted. She was NOT friendly. Her mother, a beautiful merle, was much more accommodating. But we stayed, and we asked our questions, and were given answers that we wanted to hear... yes, Mini Aussies were of moderate energy. Yes, they were definitely trainable - they would need jobs to do, but it would be easy to train them to do tasks such as find their food dishes, carry in small bags of groceries, fetch items on command. And yes, they were definitely reliable off lead.
We waited in growing anticipation for the puppies' arrival, and eventually Pirate came home - a puppy larger than most, because it turned out he was the only pup in the litter. I did not know, at the time, the problems that singleton pups can have because they lack the socialization of a littermate. All we knew was that he was Our Puppy, and we doted on him. We blithely accepted the breeder's request not to neuter him, because she might want to show and breed him - that sounded wonderful to us.
Until adolecence hit.
We were not prepared for an intact male's adolecence. We had never experienced it before. Suddenly Pirate, who already had an obsession with fetching the ball at the dog park, stopped playing with other dogs entirely - and began growling and attacking any dog who approached his ball. He became quite interested in females - both intact and spayed. He stopped listening to commands. Always a friendly puppy, he became reserved, even barky, around strangers. His energy level - never "moderate" - skyrocketed. We tried to teach him tasks - to give him a Dog's Job. He wouldn't have any of it. As going to the dog park was quickly becoming a misery where it had once been a joy, we had a family meeting.
Pirate did need a job... he needed more than one, to be honest. And he needed more exercise, which we couldn't provide for him. Walks would not even take the shadow of an edge off him. We contacted his breeder, explained the situation, and asked about rehoming him. The day we brought Pirate back to his birthplace, there was already another family waiting there to adopt him.
And so to Milo.
Milo was found through Petfinder as I searched for a second dog. Our older dog, Ariel, didn't really NEED a companion, but I wanted... I needed... a second dog. At first, I started looking for a Corgi mix, preferably about a year or two old. After months of being ignored by or rejected by rescues, I stumbled upon Milo. He was younger than we had wanted, 5 months old, but something in his eyes called to me. He was listed as an Australian Cattle Dog / Basset Hound mix.
At this time, we'd had two Cattle Dog mixes... Wilson, and later Nevin. I treasured the breed in my heart for the wonderful temperments both dogs had brought to our family. And Basset Hound! What a treasure... in both of our previous mixes, the high energy Cattle Dog had been mellowed by mixing with a lower energy breed. Surely a Basset would bring some slow, sweet energy to the mix. We applied for Milo and were approved, and Milo came home.
When we had started a search for a second dog, we had very specific requirements... the new dog MUST be good with other dogs, cats, and children. Milo was listed as all of those things. And he was - for about a week. Where he had initially greeted our cat with a wagging tail and a respectful sniff, before the month was out he was a barking, growling, hackles-raised cat pursuer. We don't know what had triggered the switch - but after two incidents of narrow escapes, our cat moved into the basement and refused to come out except at night, when the dogs were "put to bed" behind our bedroom's closed door.
We contacted a trainer recommended by the rescue. We enrolled Milo in her group classes, because she said that before we could do anything specific, he would need to learn basic obedience commands. Milo soared through puppy class and basic obedience. He loved lessons. He was wonderful on leash, and wonderful at the dog park - though he did develop an obsession with fetching tennis balls, I didn't mind because it tired him out. And I loved this dog... Milo was my playful, happy shadow at home, always by my side, my loyal little guy who loved me with all of his doggy heart.
I was determined to get the cat-chasing under control so we could have a truly happy family.
We arranged for a private session with our trainer at our home to start working on the cat problem. She assured me, having met and fallen a bit in love with Milo herself, that he seemed to be VERY trainable and that we would definitely be able to work on the cat chasing. It would take time, yes, but we all had high hopes of success.
The day of the private consultation arrived, and all was going well... until the trainer had a chance to observe Milo and our older dog, Ariel, together. She watched. She watched a bit more. Then she said, "We've got a bigger problem than cat chasing here."
Milo, she explained, was bullying and dominating our other dog. He was guarding me - and her - from Ariel, using his body and his eye to warn her off. He was bumping and pushing her around, keeping her away from anything he saw of value - namely, the attention of people. My heart sank.
I had known for some time that Milo was food-aggressive. He'd lunge for Ariel, barking and snarling, if I tried to give her a cookie. The dogs had to be fed in different rooms, and even then, Milo would rush Ariel's room to try to gobble up any food she had left behind. Since Ariel didn't play with toys, Milo didn't need to guard those from her... but now that the trainer had pointed it out, I realized that Ariel had been staying mainly in the bedroom over the past few months, not coming to socialize with the family as she always had before. This, I knew, was Bad.
We had a long talk, the trainer and I, about the resource-guarding behavior. She showed me how to interrupt Milo's "stink eye" and protect Ariel from him. We started him on a new training regime - teaching him station training ("Go to your place") and on something called "Nothing in life is free," where Milo would need to work for everything he wanted - attention, food, toys. This, the trainer assured me, would help assure Milo that Humans Were In Charge and that he didn't have to be.
And then it happened.
A few weeks into the new training cycle, I went out to dinner with a friend, leaving Milo and Ariel with my husband and son. Sometime that evening, Milo attacked Ariel, biting her hard on the cheek and leaving her face and fur a bloody mess. We took her to the vet the next morning. The puncture wounds were not as deep as they could have been... but we were shaken. We could not, we WOULD not, have an aggressive dog in our house. Bad enough that Milo was a danger to our cat... but to be a danger to our long-suffering, patient dog? No.
After consulting our trainer, we made the hard decision that Milo would need to go back to his rescue. He needed to be an only pet, our trainer said, as sad as we were at this realization. We had done all we could do, and we had a responsibility to our existing pets to keep them safe. For as trainable as Milo was, we could never ben 100% sure that he would be a safe dog.
And so Milo will join the ranks of my ghost dogs... he's still with us at the moment, prancing and wagging and unaware of what is about to change his life forever. And my heart is breaking.
My ghost dogs haunt me.
There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of them, wonder "what if..." What if I had been a stronger person? What if I had been a better owner? What if, what if, what if...
But my ghost dogs, it seems, don't hold my sins and shortcomings against me. In my mind, they gaze at me, kind-eyed and loving. They wag their tails. They seem to understand. They are, as dogs have always been, spirits of forgiveness. Dogs don't hold grudges.
I only wish I could forgive myself.