Bullies
We have a beautiful dumb intelligent aggravating loving mean lazy energetic hateful sweet Great Dane named Jade. She is all of the above and then some. We have had her since she was 5 weeks old. A rescue of sorts. Her owners were not going to take care of the puppies and were giving them away. Kelcey chose the runt and for months we weren’t sure if she was even a Great Dane or a Labrador mix of some kind with huge paws. But we soon realized this was no Lab.
For the first 8 months of her life she stayed in a large pen behind our house when we weren’t home. It wasn’t tiny and it had shade. She had 3 different dog houses during this time because she outgrew two of them. Sadly though, we didn’t know what was happening to her while we were at work. One day while we were outside, without being provoked Jade jumped on a little girl and bit her. It was awful. We didn’t know what to do. We knew that wasn’t normal for Great Danes and she had been with us her entire life and we knew we hadn’t mistreated her.
Then we learned some vital missing info in our quest for understanding. In talking to neighbors we learned that our puppy had basically been tormented by some kids that lived in the neighborhood. Kids that we didn’t even know would come around during the day while we were gone and throw rocks and sticks at her. I was obviously angry about it but instead of doing back to those kids what they had done we decided to do something that I have said my entire life I would never do. We moved the dog inside. What we also learned is that neighborhood dogs would come around and run around the cage and bark and aggravate. The story of Great Dane in the house will have to wait for another day.
So basically our 135lb pooch has been bullied. One problem with that is that if you are less than 4 feet tall she isn’t going to like you. No exceptions. And we are so nervous and scared that we don’t even try. If our family comes over with their children then Jade goes reluctantly to the basement for some alone time. And it’s not like she’s in a cage so it isn’t that bad. She has a bed and toys and water.
Enough of the sad part. Here is what I really wanted to share with you. One of the neighborhood K9 bullies (a dog for the slow learners) still lives in the neighborhood. He is a mostly brown dog, short, with a slightly longer body. He kinda looks like a fox. Whenever Jade sees him she goes crazy (we call the dog Lex because we don’t know his name and he is Jades number 1 villain). She really wants to see how many bites it would take to eat him. But since Jade is on a leash, the dog just saunters off without worrying about the barking insanely hostile beast on the end of the chain I am holding.
I may over think things but last week as I was heading outside with Jade I was wondering if Lex or some of his henchmen (two black mutts. One is a boxer mix and the other is just a medium sized ugly) would be outside. I wonder this because when they are I have to fight an insane animal in four-wheel drive trying to get to the enemy. As we walked onto the front porch a car was pulling out of the neighbors drive and across our yard came one of the henchmen. Ugly! He was running unusually close to our house completely fixated on the car and oblivious to the monster that had just emerged from her lair. With one earth shattering bark, Jade expressed her displeasure with Ugly being in our yard and that close to her house. While trying to hold his bladder and other bodily functions the extremely surprised, scared, OMG Ugly tried to turn on a dime and run the other way, any way, to get away from what must have sounded like a monster dog. Upon trying to change directions Ugly fell. And he fell, well, ugly. Fur, legs, and tail were all going different directions as he let out a yelp that could only be translated as , “Oh sh&$ where did she come from!”.
I don’t know if Jade knew what had happened or not but she stopped barking and looked up at me and I think she may have smiled. I know I was. That gave me an idea. The next time we saw Lex. I let Jade bark a little bit and when I saw Lex wasn’t scared, I took off running after him and it took about three steps for Jade to realize we were going in. It took Lex about the same amount of time to realize that this dog and her crazy handler wasn’t going for a casual stroll anymore. Tail between his legs running like a small animal being chased by two larger ones he raced off with the same yelp that Ugly had squealed on the earlier day. Priceless!
I know the dog whisperer could have had them all eating kibbles together and made Jade a babysitter of little children in just about 3 minutes but dude is in California and I don’t feel like making up a story so he will come to my house to tell me how terrible I am. Soooooooooo!
I’m not sure what the deeper meaning is with this story but it was funny. Maybe that’s what we need on a Monday. Or maybe it’s this: Be careful who you mistreat and step on today because you never know what they’ll be when they grow up or who’s holding their leash!
Have a nice week!
Pastor Dad – Not the Dog Whisperer
Oh, and Kelcey and I came up with a new saying.
(Yep, she's shooting a Minion! Another story for another day!)
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