Brandy

I've owned a few dogs in my life.  Each one was unique.  Each had their own personality and quirks. Some have been easy, a couple have been hard, but one thing that was the same about all of them was that I accepted the dogs I had, and didn't try to turn them into dogs they weren't. All, except one.

Brandy was a rottie that was purchased from a breeder (before I was heavy into rescue) at three months old.  She was the runt of her litter.  She was super cute and we adored her, but she was riddled with problems.  She was born without hip sockets, so she was constantly in pain.  We didn't realize this until she was about seven months old.  At that young age she had a total hip replacement. She needed them both replaced, but the surgeon would only do one at a time.

After she healed from her first surgery, she tore her ACL in the opposite leg.  So, instead of having her second hip surgery, she had a TPLO.  By the time she was a year old, she had spent about a quarter of her life confined to a crate, because the nature of her surgeries required it.

Before she was able to have her second total hip replacement, it was evident that her temperament was going downhill.  She started fighting with Jezebel.  Serious fights that landed me in the hospital twice for stitches, and Jezzy at the vet more than once to treat pucntures, and once to sew up a nasty gash in her flank.  She was fine with the male dogs, but she wanted nothing but death for Jezzy.  We lived a crate and rotate lifestyle for months.  I was determined to figure out how to "fix" this problem. And then she started biting people.

I believe that it's never acceptable for a dog to bite a person, unless that dog is fighting for its life, or defending a member of his family.  This dog was biting strangers with no warning. One second she'd be sitting or standing next to them, the next she was sinking her teeth into an arm.  I knew this was bad.  Really, really bad, and I was ready to have her put to sleep after the last 10 day quarentine was up.  Unfortunately, the man I lived with at the time, didn't believe in euthanizing dogs for any reason except terminal illness, and even then, he didn't always think it was our job to do it.  So, instead of euthanizing her, I hired a trainer.

I loved the trainer.  I had interviewd three, and she and I clicked the moment we sat down to talk about Brandy.  She said to me "There are very few dogs that can't be fixed."  (I now consider those words to be a red flag, because there are many behaviors that can't be trained away, only managed.) She met Brandy, we decided on a training schedule, and got started right away.

Brandy LOVED training.  She was smart as a whip and was eager to please me.  But, no matter how obedient she was when we were working, she would often flip on a dime and go from happy working puppy to snarling killer if a strange person or animal caught her eye.  She lost her damn mind, and there was no getting her attention when she was in this state.  Still, we continued working.

One day, when the weather was beautiful, instead of crate and rotate, I did inside/outside rotation.  Jezzy was outside, Brandy was inside with me. Everything was fine until Brandy caught sight of Jezzy playing with our lab, Brutus, out in the yard.  She immediately became her ferocious self, and then she did something I never thought she'd do.  She redirected from Jezebel to me.  She sunk all of her teeth, her entire mouthful, into my leg, and did damage so severe that my tendons were exposed.

 I spent 6 hours in the ER with the on call doctor, an orthopedic surgeon, a plastic surgeon, and two techs.  Ironically, it was the plastic surgeon who agreed to treat me without surgery.  There was some concern that I had a nicked artery, since the bleeding wouldn't stop.  Once it finally did, as I signed my discharge papers and stood up to leave, it started up again. The techs and I looked down at the table to see that I had soaked through four inches of bandage material and left a pool of blood on the table.  They took away my papers and we had to start over.

It was bad.  It was so bad that it took six months to heal completely.

At that point I made an executive decision.  Brandy was going to be put to sleep.  I was extremely lucky my daughters were outside playing when this happened. I was thankful that it was me who suffered the damage and not one of them.  It was an easy decision to make and follow through with after all I had been through, but I still stayed with her during the process, and I still cried buckets, even though I hobbled in there on crutches, on a ton of pain meds because of the injuries she inflicted on me.  It wasn't her fault she was like this.  She had some serious wiring issues in her brain.

When I told the trainer what had happened she said "I know I told you there are very few dogs that can't be fixed.  I'm sorry that she's one of them."

I learned a very important lesson from that dog:  Temperament trumps training.  Always.  You cannot train away aggressive behavior.  You can attempt to manage it, which I did successfully with Chuck (another rottie), but you can never trust a dog not to revert back to aggressive behavior no matter how much training you put into them.

It's because of Brandy that I have very strict criteria that I use to judge a dog before I allow it into my house, whether it be a foster or one I'm choosing to adopt.  I read a lot into their body language and behaviors I observe when they interact with people and other dogs.  I'm a harsh judge of character and I will pass up dogs that many rescue people would choose to pull out of a shelter and work with. And I go with my gut.  Even if I don't observe any alarming behavior, if I get a weird vibe from a dog, I won't work with it.

The reason I'm telling this story is because, now that Jezzy is gone, I'm searching for a foster dog.  I'm not ready to adopt another dog yet, but I feel a need to have another dog in the house.  Admiral needs a companion, and I feel like giving a homeless dog a temporary place to live until he or she finds a new family is a wonderful way to honor Jezebel.

I'm not looking forward to the picking process though.  In a shelter environment, it's hard to see what a dog's true temperament is.  Many hyper dogs in the shelter go into a home and become nice, mellow dogs.  Sometimes dogs who are shut down in a shelter turn out to be much higher energy with personality quirks that aren't known until they get into a home.  I don't want to pick the wrong dog.  I don't want to make a mistake that leaves me with a dog I didn't mean to choose, while a perfectly even tempered dog has to stay in the shelter and probably won't make it out. The shelter we're going to can't adopt pit bulls to the public because they're illegal.

It's a lot of pressure to be under, even if that pressure comes from my own standards.  Dogs like Brandy aren't all that common, but they're out there.  All I can do is meet some dogs, and if I find one I think fits the bill, hope for the best.