Untenable Rage

Well my heart is breaking tonight and I am fighting back the tears. We had another DOG INCIDENT ... my daughter left a frozen pizza on the counter (stupid yes I know ... but we are the HUMANS and it is our house ...) and Booker grabbed it and then had an absolutely terrifying rage episode -- he lunged at my daughter on her way from her bedroom to the kitchen and bit her foot. He released his grip and clamped down on her calf. She called me, hysterical (afraid and hurt and confused ... she was crying and crying) and I had to call David to go home and deal with the situation ---

He got there within minutes, and Booker was in the kitchen RAVAGING the frozen pizza. Booker charged out of the kitchen and attacked David at the front door. He bit him twice. He made punctures in David's motorcycle boots. What would he have done on bare flesh? Booker tore his jeans. Booker wouldn't listen, he wouldn't acquiesce, he was a snarling, biting, barking terror. He doesn't "just growl," or "just snap," he ATTACKS. Like an insane cujo attack dog ready, trained, willing and fully capable of killing a mountain lion. I have no illusions about my ability to "control" him. If I would have been the one to run home to save the teen-human from Booker, he would have attacked me too. He crosses a line and he loses all sensibilities and ability to "behave."

David managed to wrestle Booker into his kennel. Jail. Booker sat there for hours, staring into the living room, glassy-eyed.

We cannot live in a home where we need a tranquilizer dart gun to get a swiped pizza away from the dog.

Booker has rage syndrome. Abuse, starvation, brutal hunting training. Something clicked a crazy switch in this dog that is not un-doable.

I am a realist.

Food is his trigger. He is dangerous. He should never have been deemed "adoptable," but who would know until he was in a normal, family situation. There was no pizza on the counter in the vet clinic that nursed him back to health after he was found abandoned.

Now. This is a dog that I have worked so hard with ... SO HARD. We have had the professional trainer consult. I have FIXED every single one of his issues, and believe me, there were many -- lunging at bicycles, going demonic over open car doors, food bowl aggression, toy aggression, pulling on the leash, manic fence-chasing at the dog park -- you name it, I have worked my ass off with this dog. I am really good with dogs and I have no illusions about what to expect or how to train one.

We were ready to sacrifice shoes to a chewer. Swab the decks after accidents. Do short sessions of obedience training that require repetition that could drive you nuts. Manage our environment and spend every minute anticipating behavior and misbehavior.

And I really really love him. omg He is my RESCUE dog and I really put everything into rescuing him. I spend hours a day with him, from the dog park to on-leash walks to training training training. He can hold a SIT STAY in the hallway while I walk all the way down to our condo and come only when I release him. At the dog park, I shout GO HOME and he goes to the gate to wait for me. EVERYONE at the dog park (and there is a "regular" crowd of about 10 people for the 7am time we go) has made comment after comment after compliment about all the work that I've done with Booker and how much he has changed, improved, how admirable he is.

So tomorrow I am going to take him to the humane society and have him put to sleep. The rescue that we got him from said that if ever we cannot keep him, we have to call them to take him back. But they SHOULD NOT rehome him. He is dangerous. It's just a matter of time before he really does some damage that requires a hospital episode. He couldn't be trusted with young children, not at all. Or with visitors.

I don't have to rationalize this. He has a serious, untenable mental defect.

arrghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I am going to cry all day tomorrow.

A dog's point of view

Okay, so let's say that this very high strung and anxious visitor flies into your life on the coat-strings of a hurricane.

She comes into your home.

And she makes herself comfortable in the teen-human's bedroom.

This is a room where you (as the D-O-G) have only recently re-won the privilege of hanging out. And you have a big blue cushion on the floor, and when you are being very good and very obedient, the teen-human allows you to curl up and go to sleep. And the teen-human bosses you around alot, and you work really hard to maintain your current state of "being in good graces with the moody 16-year-old girl teen-human."

So, this visitor puts a zipped travel bag in the room. Right on top of your blue cushion. THE special blue cushion upon which you are so pleased to have earned the rights to being welcomed again.

And then you go to sleep. No one is home, except you and that V-I-S-I-T-O-R. And the travel bag is right on your cushion.

Then the visitor barges into the teen-human's room (a very sacred place, which you, as a dog, are KEENLY aware of) and wakes you up and GRABS the travel bag right off of your cushion.

You see, as a DOG, you thought the TRAVEL BAG was now yours. It was, after all, on your special cushion. And, even though you have no TEETH (being the hillbilly dog that you are) and even though you can't rip the travel bag open, you have the nose-of-all-noses ... you have a HOUND DOG NOSE, and you KNOW what is in the travel bag.

You KNOW that, in the travel bag, there may be (or at least the remnants of) a:


See, you should work at the airport as a bag inspector. You should screen for contraband. You should capture and confiscate whatever your nose dictates.

You become CUJO and go after the visitor. Who, in your eyes has little to no RIGHT or AUTHORITY when it comes to being in your house, because even though you, as the DOG, are accepting that you are the bottom entity in the pack, even BELOW the teen-human, you are still IN THE PACK, the visitor IS NOT. And you are the only pack member in the house. The pecking order, to you, as the dog is very obvious. Especially when it comes to a travel bag that involves a sandwich.

Then the teen-human comes home from cross-country, drags her tired body into her bedroom and flops on the bed. And you make the MISTAKE of growling at her. And she is ready to evict you again. PERMANENTLY. And then Man-Dad comes in, and you growl at him. And all this time, NO ONE knows that there is a SANDWICH in the mysterious TRAVEL BAG that somehow has landed on YOUR CUSHION, and by every law in dog-dom, is now YOURS.

Until, all of a sudden, TEEN-HUMAN figures something out. She is becoming quite a DOG WHISPERER. Her relationship with the D-O-G is becoming very complicated and, actually, very special. Their friendship has been hard-won.

TEEN-HUMAN says: "THERE MUST BE SOMETHING IN THAT TRAVEL BAG, BECAUSE BOOKER IS BEING VERY AGGRESSIVE ABOUT IT!"

And then the visitor confesses to being a sandwich horder. See, she was fleeing a hurricane, and didn't know if she would ever have a meal again.

And the travel bag is cautiously removed.

And sandwich evidence is taken away and destroyed.

And peace is returned. Booker shared the sofa with the visitor all evening, watching CNN and the Weather Channel, and didn't even think twice about the TRAVEL BAG INCIDENT.

No one is making excuses for your behavior, as a BAD DOG, but they understand it. You have food issues, and they are BIG issues, and that was really an unfair test. With all the factors of high emotional tension in the house, a visitor, invasion of territory, desertion by the rest of the pack, and inaccessible food. A very unfair test.

The Ham Salad Incident

Booker's doppelganger, CRAZY-CUJO-DEMON, reared his ugly, aggressive head this weekend.

I am in the bathroom, getting ready to go out to dinner, and I hear David saying sternly, "Release. Release. Release. Give it. No, Booker. Release."

Booker was braced on his cushion, in our bedroom, with a deli clamshell from the garbage. The remnants of deli ham salad in the corners. This was absolutely a "score" ... doggie scavenged treasure. Booker was not giving it up. Forget release. Forget give. No way on the "no." Booker was bearing his teeth and growling. I envisioned blood. It wasn't pretty.

"KENNEL," I shouted, probably not the right command, but I was shaking. The Doppelganger frightened me. Booker beelined for his kennel, with the ham salad container clenched between his teeth. I slammed the kennel door closed and Booker attacked the wire. I was terrified. And angry. I was trembling. Disappointed.

I am H-Mom. What was this all about? Booker was growling menacingly at me. He is MY dog ... My shadow ... My "good boy!"

A serious lesson.

When you rescue a dog, you are taking on all of his baggage. Booker has food aggression ISSUES (no lower case here) and we know this. We are making progress, but he will probably always have issues. He may have been starved, abused, left to fight with a pack for his food. We have gotten past the food bowl guarding and turned dinner time into a friendly interchange. We control the food and we are kind, giving and generous. But a real delicacy, knabbed from the garbage? All bets are off.

The thing is, this was really my fault. I left the garbage bag, untied and half-full, on the floor in the kitchen, leaning against the can. It was ready to take down the hall to the trash shoot. And then I got into the shower. As Samantha has so astutely observed, Booker is an opportunist. Put out bait he will take it. And then, as we have seen, it is his.

If Booker had been picked up by animal control or dropped off at a shelter, he would have failed the food aggression test. He would have mangled that dummy hand. I do not doubt for a minute that he would bite and gravely injure to protect his food. He probably would have been euthanized as unadoptable. Because he came through a breed-specific rescue, he has slipped through the rigorous adoptability testing and landed in our lives.

And we love him. There are so many wonderful things about him, incredible calm, noble temperament, patient demeanor, quiet devotion ... the list is already, after five months, long.

There is no option but to work with this. And diligently create an environment where we avoid these confrontations. If he gets something he shouldn't have, we have to remember, in that adrenalin-filled "NO" moment, that we have to approach Booker calmly, engineer a TRADE. We will be able to gradually, very, very gradually, quash the doppelganger.