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Monday, December 14, 2009

Bad Day in the 'Hood

My first post! Woo! I'll try to be witty but no real promises... writing is not my forte' what so ever. But here it goes:

The dog park. Well, I guess if I'm being honest it's really a field owned by VT that dogs and their owners have begun to take over. We're not really welcome and actually aren't allowed to park in the usual parking lot starting tomorrow.... but that's not going to stop anybody. Anyway, it's frequented by older townies and college students, like us. The dogs love it and we don't have to put forth any effort to exercise ourselves... it's really a win win all around. Emily K has been taking Sully since the late summer and now that I have Tucker we've been usuals too. There's a big group of us who tend to go around the same time and the dogs all get along. Sully chases Juno and Nahla, probably the two fastest dogs I've ever met, while Tucker attempts for maaaybe 5 seconds before realizing he's too fat and goes off to go dig in the mud.... he's such a social dog. WELL this past Thursday, all the usual suspects were there plus a few extras - Daisy, Sage, and Sofie. Sage and Sofie are two Newfoundland Lab mixes owned by a mother and daughter while Daisy is some sort of shelty mix who is owned by the mother's neighbor. The three come together and tend to just walk around the park on leashes because they have a history of being aggressive when they get together (caught on to where I'm going with this one yet?)

Sully and the gang were running through the corn while Tucker observed on the side, most likely daydreaming about either treats or eating some toilet paper. Emily and I were saying goodbye to two boys who had brought their dogs; one who is there everyday with us and the other we have only seen maybe once. It was getting cold so we were thinking of leaving too.....and then we hear screaming. We turn and Daisy, Sage, and Sofie are all circling Tucker on the ground while he is crying like I've never heard him cry before. We run over and the dogs begin nipping at him. All I can think about is getting him out without getting hurt - this has happened before with the same three dogs and we had talked about how you're not supposed to get into the middle of it because you can easily get bitten too. The three dog's owners rush over too just in time for two of the dogs to pick up Tucker by his ear and neck and start shaking him violently. Not to sound dramatic, but I really thought my dog was dead at this point. He's 20some pounds of fluff being thrown by 3, much larger, agressive dogs and I'm standing helpless watching it all unfold. All Emily and I could do was scream and scream loud. Out of nowhere the two boys who were leaving showed up to tear the dogs off of Tucker. It took a few moments but finally he was out and just ran away yelping. I picked him up and he would not stop this blood wrenching scream. I've never heard anything like it before.

So there I am, holding him, shaking, and not quite sure what to do. I began examining him, looking for blood, praying that I don't find any. His whole head and ear are soaked but I couldn't find anything (Thank God.) One of the three dog's owners came over just to say "Oh he's fine, he's just scared." Really, lady? My puppy almost died... DIED because your dogs picked on him. Call me dramatic all you want, but everyone seemed to be in consensus that it was a miracle he was ok. Emily and I ran out of there as fast as we could and met up with the two boys who had helped. In tears, I thanked them the best that I could. Seriously, Tuck probably wouldn't have made it without them. One of the two even was bit - Emily noticed that his finger was bleeding but he claimed it was dry skin. I hope I see him again to fall over myself thanking him.

Luckily, our neighbor is a vet in a surrounding town (seriously, how lucky? not only is he a really nice guy but a vet!). Since it happened after Tucker's usual vet was closed I decided to call our neighbor to bring him in. We drove for probably 30 minutes, which felt like hours to me, to get to his clinic maybe two minutes before they were scheduled to close. Tucker got a thorough check through and they found two puncture wounds - one on his ear and a deep one on his neck. Dr. Neighbor said he'd need stiches, so out came the clippers to shave his fur along with the wiggles from Tucker. I've never seen him want to get away from something so badly as I did that day. The poor, tiny nurse had to practically lay on him to shave the fur down. Once that ordeal was over Dr. N put some glue stitches - Tuck is so clumsy with his whole vision, I don't even want to see him try and maneuver around with a cone on his head. I felt terrible that we made Dr. N, the nurse, and secretary ALL stay late for our ordeal and to top it all off they gave me a discount on the visit --- they have got to be the nicest people ever. I paid, thanked them, and we headed back home.


Don't let it fool you... he squirrmed like NO other as soon as he heard the clipper noise

Neck bite :(


Sully was the cutest big brother ever. When the big dogs had Tucker, Emily K had to hold him back from getting in to try to save him. When Tucker was screaming in my arms, Sully was mimicking the exact same cry (so weird!) and then licked all over his wounds we were in the car. On the way back from the vet he sat vigil next to Tuck while he slept. Best dog ever.

Patiently awaiting Tucker to get cleaned up so he can sniff him


Nurse Sully



So thankfully, we're all still in one piece. I called the police to ask them what all I could do about this. Tucker's incident was the fourth is four months that we know about - who knows how many other there are with the same three dogs. All I can really do they said was to call the police if the dogs are let off the leash again and they'll take it from there. And what am I going to do if I see them again? I have no idea - I'd like to think that I'd go up to them and give them a peice of my mind... how do you not apologize for something like that! I didn't get a "sorry" or "let me help" or "is there anything I can do?". Nothing. I'd like to practice in my head some great speech I'll give them, but in all honestly I'll probably grab Tucker and spring out of there while calling the cops. I'm a baby - it's ok, I can admit it. But the great thing is that Tucker doesn't even seem phased by it! You can touch his bite marks all you want and he doesn't flinch... not even once. And we went back to the dog park today and he was just as excited as ever to be there. I'm just so thankful for the boys being there to break it up and that he's ok. Things have been just a crazy around here. But to end on a good note, I'll put some pictures of the boys just being themselves (we're just a little bit obsessed, no big deal.)
















Well, I guess that's really all I've got for now. I'll try not to post such a dramatic post next time... but other than that and finals, that's all that's really been going on in my life right now. But only one more final and three days stand between me and Christmas break! It's soooo close I can taste it!


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