It’s a very sad day in our house. Our dog Sadie bit MJ for the second time, but this time on the face. When she bit him the first time, it was on the thumb and she drew blood and it was minor. Today, she crossed the line by biting his face. His nose has two scrapes and his upper lip was punctured by her tooth. Jon and I both made the decision after the first quarentine that if this happened again, there was not any another option but to put her down. I tried to find another home for her without children, but most shelters wouldn’t take her because of the history of biting. The Human Society we got her from offered to take her back as a last resort, but we thought that we could rehabilitate her. We were wrong. Like Jon said over at RandomCommands, we don’t know what her life was like before we got her. She has a scar on her nose and is fearful of yelling and anyone who stands over her. Fear + excitment = disaster.
More than anything, I cry for my children and the hard life lesson they are having to learn thru this experience. I never imagined that we would be going through this. My cynical self is crying out, “Come on Ang..you had to know that you didn’t get the “perfect dog”, you didn’t do enough and this is exactly what could have happened…it does all the time.” Except this time, we really feel we did what was right by our children and their safety and didn’t keep her just because she was cute and appeared to be a sweet happy dog. Like so many people out there, we didn’t keep her locked up in the backyard to avoid dealing with her unpleasant behavior and further neglecting her making her even more neruotic. For that I feel like we did the right thing.
I also cry because seeing the looks on their faces when they realized this was not a threat, but a reality. It just breaks my heart. We will be dealing with the aftermath for a while and Christmas will be hard because we had plans to get the “cousin beagles” together at my sisters house to meet each other. I didn’t even get to have my Mom or Dad or Sister meet the newest “furever” member of our family. Now she is gone and all we have is pictures, memories, and eventually her ashes.
Because we loved her despite the problems she had, and she did bring us joy while she was here, we will give her a proper burial and give our children peace and closure to help them get through our loss.
She will be missed.