Dog Bites Man

Okay, so I really don’t want this blog to be a downer or anything, but sometimes we don’t exert very much control over what happens in our lives. Yesterday’s news brought the troubling story about the effective end of American Theater Company’s ensemble and the better news that is the flip side of the story: the rebirth of American Blues Theatre, populated by so many artists for whom I have so much respect and affection.

Last night brought another story, the titular story: Dog Bites Man.

Beau is a 5 ½ year old purebred Sheltie who my wife and I adopted about a year and a half ago. Early on in his time with us, he occasionally nipped either Gloria or me. He’s bitten Gloria a couple times when she was brushing him, breaking skin more than once, but it somehow didn’t seem like a huge or insurmountable problem. He’d bitten me on my leg, once on my head when I playing a little too roughly with him, so I always let it go. Until last night.

The scene: Gloria and I are sitting on the couch watching a DVD. Beau is on the couch, lying down between us. At one point, I leaned down to kiss Beau on his head (a gesture I’ve successfully performed hundreds of times), and Beau bit my upper lip, leaving two gaping gashes in the process. The bleeding was, well, profuse. Today, I have a fat lip with two black scabs on it – neither attractive nor comfortable. As much as it breaks my heart, we are going to have to part with Beau. We’re exploring if there is a Sheltie rescue group that might help, we’ve already contacted PAWS (where we’d adopted him) to see if they will take him back. It saddens both of us, but there comes a time when enough is precisely that.

Yesterday when I was walking Beau and his much older brother (figuratively, not literally) Max, there were two different young children who stopped to pet the dogs. Had Beau bitten one of these children (which he didn’t, thankfully) the police would have him put down instantly. It’s a risk we can no longer take, I’m sorry to say.

Here’s to a better day tomorrow.

Namaste.