Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem called The Power of a Dog. I’m not sure if I would recommend looking it up. Maybe there should be some kind of trigger warning for this content…
Saturday, January 6
We woke up to find a swarm of bees on a decorative bird house we have in our front yard. I started doing some online research to find a solution for having them moved. My husband, Irv, said he heard there are beekeepers that will buy the bees. I found sites saying they would move the hive for anywhere from $0 to $499. I found a shop dedicated to bees in Chatsworth and thought maybe I would go over there next time I was in the area. We have a circular driveway, this birdhouse is in a small planting bed at the apex of the curve, and these bees weren’t going to bother us until we could find a way to move them. I figured I would pick up this research on Monday.
Later that day, We were all in our family room, Irv in his recliner, me in my spot on the couch, Coal in his spot, beside me on the couch, he was possibly asleep. It was quiet in the house as well as the outside world. Coal had been resting on the couch for hours. I had been crocheting all day. Maybe I was listening to a podcast, Irv was reading.
I had put down my crocheting and was going to get up and go to the bathroom. I lightly stroked Coal’s head, as I have done thousands of times, and he jumped up and came at me. I jerked my hand away and covered my head and face with my arms, but he got my hand. I had two smallish punctures.
Irv jumped up and ordered Coal off the couch, and outside to the yard. Irv kept saying that was weird. Coal had a history of incidents of aggression toward people, increasing in severity, and I had been managing him. Since 2019, I had been increasing the levels of precautions to avoid situations where he might become aggressive and present a danger of biting someone. The thing you need to know about all of Coal’s aggression incidents is that Irv was not present for any of them. I’m the one who is home most of the time, the one who mostly deals with the dog. I take him to the vet or vaccine clinic, I’m the one home when painters, plumbers, and packages come to the house. To Irv this was very weird, to me it was a sign of extreme danger. The rest of Saturday, Coal wasn’t allowed on the couch, and we let him stay outside much of the day. I avoided petting him or reaching for him at all.
On Sunday he came to my left side a couple times. Later in the afternoon he rested his chin on my leg, as he often does, and I petted his head and scratched behind his ears briefly. But I was still cautious. About an hour later he came to me again and I reached over the arm of the couch to pet his head. He ducked away from my hand and then snapped at me. This time he didn’t connect. Irv ordered him to get away, which he did, but coal was immediately scared of me. Shortly after that, when we were getting ready to go to a play, Coal sat in front of Irv sitting on the edge of the bed. When Irv went to pet him, he jerked away as if he was scared.
We speculated, maybe he had something wrong, an ear infection, an impacted tooth. We decided I should take him to the vet as soon as possible.
When we got home from the play, I went to let Coal out of the back patio kennel. He did his routine of running around in circles before going in the back door. He usually runs in the door and then back out to me as I’m walking toward the door. He did that, but as soon as we were inside, he exhibited fear toward me the rest of the evening.
On Monday I called the vet to get an appointment as soon as I could get in. they had openings at 9:30 and 3:30 the next day. I took the 9:30 appointment.
My schedule for Monday kept me out of the house from 9:30 to 4:30. I left the dog in his outside kennel until he let out a mournful cry around 5:30. I didn’t know which wrong thing to choose; leave him outside, alone, in the dark, when he clearly knew I was home, or have him in the house with me alone. Coal’s behavior was odd. He jumped around like he did when Irv got home and he’s anticipating a walk. He sat next to the spot where we keep his leash, his front paws dancing and his tail thwacking on the floor. I took him for a micro walk around the driveway. I was still afraid to pet him and he was still avoiding me in the house. Later when I was changing into my pajamas, Coal was on his dog bed across the bedroom, and he craned his head up, eyeing me over the bed.
Tuesday morning, it was 37 degrees out when Irv took Coal for his morning walk. When they came back Irv said the bees were gone. Later I scrolled back through the Ring doorbell images to see if I could find out what happened to the bees. I scrolled all the way back to 12:17 pm Monday, which was the last time they were visible hanging from the faux birdhouse. The next image was at 1:17, and they were gone. No one had come into the yard or onto the driveway. The bees just disappeared.
When I took him to the vet, I didn’t put the muzzle on him, as I normally would – since the time in 2019 when he became dangerously aggressive with the vet in Reseda that we couldn’t go to anymore. in the exam room, I gave The assistant the story of what had happened over the weekend. She took Coal to the back. The vet, Dr. K returned to the exam room without the dog. He said they hadn’t really been able to examine Coal. He was aggressive, fought them. They managed to get a muzzle on him, but he was still fighting.
Dr. K said he did not recommend keeping the dog. He said we didn’t have to, it would be our choice, but he was recommending euthanasia. In his 45 years as a vet, Dr. K had seen this kind of aggressive behavior in dogs. When a dog had previously laid on the cough with his owner petting him and scratching behind his ears while talking baby talk, bit his owner, that was extremely concerning. Dr. K was concerned for my safety.
I don’t usually call Irv at work, but this was an extraordinary situation. He didn’t want to accept euthanasia as a solution. I wanted Irv to hear first hand from the doctor, and he was willing to. But Dr. K is deaf and can’t talk on the phone. The office was willing to fit us in at 5:00 that day, but Irv couldn’t get away. To complicate things, Dr. K was going on vacation the next day.
Irv wanted to consult a trainer – which kind of annoyed me, as I don’t put much faith in the things trainers will say about aggression in dogs. He got a number for a trainer from his business partner, who’s wife has been involved with dog agility for almost 30 years. We got on the phone with this trainer, Danielle, in the evening. She asked us lots of questions. I related the history of Coal’s aggressive incidents, some I had never told my husband about, so he was hearing this for the first time.
To her credit, Danielle didn’t say training would be the solution to Coal’s aggression. She was not arguing that we should keep him. She made some recommendations for managing him if we chose to keep him. He should not be allowed on the couch anymore, which he wasn’t, but not for the trainer’s reasoning that it elevated the dog to my level psychologically. I was in a dangerously vulnerable position sitting on the couch with the dog, I was much safer if he was on the floor, across the room.
We shouldn’t let Coal get worked up, or become adrenalized, barking and growling at dogs from my studio windows at the front of the house. I would have to keep the door to that room closed. This was an I-told-you-so moment. Three years ago I tried to get my husband to work on Coal’s displays of aggression toward other dogs when he was walking. I thought at the time it could be a trainable behavior, if we acted in the moment. My husband dismissed what I said, “no, it’s fine, he just does this for a minute, then he’s OK.” He had been at least a little hurt that I wouldn’t go on walks with him and the dog.
Danielle suggested using a cage muzzle. She shared that she has a large poodle dog that doesn’t goes out in public without a cage muzzle. At this point I began to put my foot down. I’m not doing this again, he’s seven years old, he could live another five to six years. We had a dog, another big dog, named Clancy that was aggressive to other dogs, and bit people without warning. At one point, after Irv had to get his hand stitched, we decided to have him put down over a weekend, and changed our minds by Monday.
The discussion would continue through the evening to Wednesday and Thursday. Was I willing to work with a trainer or dog behaviorist? No, veterinarians and trainers who are honest will admit you can’t train aggression out of a dog. This is a one-off, if it happens again then maybe we have to put him down. This isn’t a one-off, this is the escalation of a pattern of aggression. And it’s going to be worse next time.
Putting the dog down would take away something Irv really loved. I, however, had done all of the unpleasant tasks in caring for Coal, including managing him when he lunged at a visitor to the house, unprovoked; managing him at the low-cost vaccination clinic when he was aggressive with the tech and had to be muzzled; when he lunged at me growling when I caught him eating food off the counter and told him to get down. Irv saw none of these behaviors. He came home in the evening, Coal got pranced around and howled with happiness, and Irv enjoyed taking him for his walks.
Coal had come to me when I got up in the morning and touched me with his nose, which was normal. But I didn’t reach to pet him in the dark. I talked to him the way I usually would. But he stayed away from me in the house. He went to lie in the dining room, where he could watch me in the kitchen. If I called from my desk in the family room, he came to the door and looked, and only reluctantly came closer to me. He didn’t put his chin on my lap as he normally would, and I still didn’t reach to pet him.
Tuesday afternoon I avoided going home. After my eye exam I texted my good friend and we met for lunch, had a long discussion of dogs and dog problems. On the way home, I turned around and went back to Tarzana to get my tires rotated. It was time, and I had been putting it off.
Wednesday, I saw my primary care doctor for my annual checkup, where I got a tetanus shot added to the usual tasks. The vet’s office called later in the day with Coal’s blood test results, all levels were normal. Dr. K was on vacation, and Dr. B had taken over Coal’s case. She had treated him before, including the last time he was there just two months earlier. In an extremely not-helpful move Dr. B had given the receptionist a message to give me, that she didn’t agree with Dr. K about euthanasia. She wanted to talk to me about working with a trainer. She wanted me to bring Coal back for another exam.
I wanted to talk to her on the phone. She wouldn’t be available until 5:00, when I would be going into a meeting – which I was leading. In that case, Dr. B wouldn’t be available until 5:00 the next day. I pressed them and she agreed to call me in the morning. At first, she gave me the exact opposite opinion from Dr. K. she had seen Coal in November, he was a lovely, happy doggy. She said she didn’t agree that a medical problem would cause the biting incident on Saturday afternoon. I found out she didn’t actually have the full story, just brief notes from the other doctor. When I finished giving her Coal’s history, she agreed training would not help the situation, and if we decided to euthanize him, we shouldn’t feel guilty about it. My thanks for that might not have been overly sincere.
After our meeting that evening, I again had the feeling I didn’t want to go home. When I did get home, Coal met me at the door, as normal. With Irv’s encouragement, he danced around and gave his happy howls. And still was wary of me. We discussed him all evening. Irv wanted an alternative.
Maybe he should stay either in his crate or outside when I was home alone. I didn’t think that would help his aggression toward me in any way.
Maybe there was a rescue agency that would take a dog. I told Irv I wanted him to do the research – this time – I had done it with Clancy, and I knew there was no place. There is no farm upstate where he can run free and be happy.
Now I was in the position of arguing to put the dog down. My husband, almost reluctantly, agreed. Just before bed he said, “well, talk to the kids. If they agree, then I guess we’ll do it.” Then, “what, what was that look?”
Thursday morning, I talked to the kids. I typed out a history of the escalating aggression events and emailed it to all of them. It was a full page. Our son, Michael, and daughter-in-law, Jessica, supported my position. Thursday afternoon was my weekly get together with some friends, where we do our creative projects alongside each other. We had a long discussion about the dog. I deliberately stayed out until after Irv was home.
I had wanted Irv to research the alternatives he was looking for. I didn’t think he’d do it during the day. It’s the beginning of tax season, he’s busy, which is the reason I always had to do the mundane, thankless tasks all along. He had complained that I wasn’t seeing the stories where training had worked, as if I was selectively focused on the bad stories where people kept a dog until they ended up with someone in the ER. This was evening we were both on our phones, googling dog training for aggression and what is known as “rehoming.”
I put in the search “rehoming a dog that has bitten its owner,” or “…bitten people.” And that’s the search that took me to the Reddit and Quora threads where the truly revealing stories are. People might post “can I rehome my dog, I don’t want to have to put him down?” or “what should I do?”
The comments were most informative. there were the people answering questions about training. “we tried training, it didn’t really work,” “training was only moderately effective,” “training worked for a while, then the dog was just as aggressive.” So they tried rehoming. Someone rehomed a dog, and the people wanted to give it back because they couldn’t manage it. Or the original owner was upset the new owners wanted to surrender the dog to a municipal shelter, where it might be put down. Someone recommended surrendering it, but don’t tell the shelter the dog has bitten people, because they’ll kill it. At this point, I question the No-Kill movement.
I didn’t share all of these with Irv, and I wasn’t willing to give on my position. I knew that if I did, if I agreed to keep and manage Coal, all of the difficult and upsetting tasks would be mine. I knew that if I softened my stance, it would be Clancy all over again; years of managing a dog that could be dangerous. I reminded Irv that although we (read: he and the kids) made a big joke of it at the time, I really did hate that dog by the end of his life.
Friday morning Irv woke me up before he left for the office. He asked me to just listen, not answer right away, take time to think about it. He was bargaining, he proposed:
Zero tolerance of ANY biting
In crate for all visitors
On no Furniture
Irv will take to veterinarian unless emergency
You and I will occasionally walk with Coal
He also put this in a text. I sent a long text back.
He suggested the dog goes in his crate when any visitors come to the house, even the kids and people who he was friendly with. I said that will set up a situation where the only person Coal has a positive relationship with would be Irv.
Danielle had recommended keeping my studio door closed all the time. I questioned how realistic that would be. I texted, I can keep my studio door closed when I’m not in there. But over time people get lax with rules and if I’m working in there, do I have to close the door when I leave so he can’t go in there? And by that I mean if I go to another room to get something or go to the bathroom and then come back in. What I’m working in there I’m in and out of the room all day. You know, it’s like your office you go in and out all day. And this puts the so-called managing of him again as my responsibility.
Coal would not come near me he wouldn’t come to me if I called him. He had not come over to me to put his chin on my thigh so I could pet him since Sunday. I said I was sure he could sense the tension in me, but that still doesn’t make all this my fault. I was nervous alone in the house with him, and decided I needed to put him in his crate for a while. So I started to spread out his carpet and blankets in the crate, and when he heard me he came trotting out from the bedroom to see what I was doing. To me that was a sign of resource guarding. He heard me messing with his possessions and came to look.
We had a long conversation on the phone. I asserted that this bite was not a one off, it was not the first time. this bite represented an escalation of a pattern of unprovoked aggression. What was most disturbing was the dog’s change in behavior.
We were both upset, but for different reasons. He said, and rightly so, that he doesn’t have very many things that he does for enjoyment. And that’s a whole other issue that probably will need to be addressed. At different points during this week I imagined moving into the guest bedroom if my husband wouldn’t go along with eliminating the dog, I didn’t tell him that. I actually asked him in this phone call if he was choosing the dog over me.
He finally agreed. He wanted to have in-home euthanasia. I spent four hours on the phone with different veterinary services, arranging it for Saturday afternoon. The vet I found was Dr. Chen. She was great. She’s local, in Reseda, and it turned out she knew Dr. K and Dr. B, she had euthanized a dog for Dr. B in the past. Talking with her, I found out a veterinarian can’t prescribe medicine for a dog they have never seen or examined. (while a trainer who has never met you can give advice over the phone!)
Friday evening was quiet in the house, there was no more discussion.
Michael and Jessica came up from Orange County. I was so grateful they did. We got sedatives from our regular vet, and Coal was sedated all day. Irv took him for four walks that day. Dr. Chen was wonderful and supportive. The procedure was peaceful and gentle. In his last act of care, Irv carried Coal out to Dr. Chen’s car. I thought I might feel relieved, but I didn’t really.
The kids stayed a while, we had Chinese food. They took the indoor crate, the dog biscuits, the stainless steel bowl from the outside kennel. I asked them to take the carpet and blankets from the crate so Irv wouldn’t have to see them in the trash for the next week.
The nature of the backyard changed immediately. A few minutes after the vet drove away with Coal, the bunnies came out to eat in the back yard. They live under our shed. We had remarked earlier that we hadn’t seen them for many weeks. Sunday evening, just around sundown, while we were soaking in the hot tub, we noticed one of the bunnies on the other side of the yard. As he made his way across the yard, he would hop a few yards and stop. At one point, he sat still in the middle of the patio – which could never have happened before, as Coal would be outside with us when we were in the hot tub. The bunny worked his way around the back of the house and slipped out under the side gate.
The next few days the house was quiet. Irv was sad, my feelings were mixed. We gradually informed family and friends. Irv’s sister sent us an article supportive of making the hard decision to put down a dog for behavioral issues. It validated some of the things I had been saying all week, you can’t manage a dog 100 percent of the time, people get lax with the rules over time, and there is no magical place where you can send a dog to live and run free.
The following Wednesday morning I was at my desk in the family room. A bird came and sat on the back of one of our patio chairs – something they don’t often do. And I swear it was looking into the sliding door as if it was looking to see if the dog was in there.
Two weeks later when I was having lunch with Jessica, she told me about her brother and sister-in-law’s dog. I knew they had a dog, they lived with her mom and other siblings in Anaheim. I knew the dog stayed in their bedroom when they weren’t home. I found out why they keep the dog confined. The dog bites people, it has bitten Jessica’s mom and others. It bit a stranger who they paid a $1000 settlement to. Her brother and sister-in-law refuse to do what we did. The family is afraid of this dog.
My husband still feels sad about Coal. He shared with me he was thinking about him and got sad on the way home. I sympathized, but I didn’t tell him, I’m less and less sad every day.
