diego

As a lot of you know a few months back our family adopted a  Border Collie named Diego. His previous family had neglected him, leaving him outside in the heat of Florida. My friend had come into possession of Diego by chance and wanted to find him a good home.

Diego was such an affectionate dog. He loved everyone and would sit in your lap any chance he got. However he had a bit of an issue with mouth play. He wasn’t socialized and so when he got excited he would bite. Not hard, but enough to frustrate. Luckily he seemed to steer clear of biting with the kids. Maybe he realized they were small, I’m not sure. But we nicknamed him Jasper, from the movie Twilight, joking at any moment he may take a bite out of one of us.

He was being trained and was making progress. He was food protective. I think it had something to do with being neglected. When he received his food he didn’t want Scrappy, our 12 year old Beagle, anywhere near it. He and Scrappy had a love hate relationship. Diego didn’t appreciate Scrappy receiving any attention and if we pet Scrappy Diego would start a playful fight with him. It was normal and we were working on it.

Recently however Scrappy and Diego had been fighting with one another more than usual. Usually they fight, bark at one another, maybe jump on each other, and its over. For some reason those past two days they have actually been biting one another. It was awful. So something was up.

So on Sunday the 24th I was upstairs with Jason reading him a book in bed. I hear the dogs start fighting but it doesn’t stop. It’s like on replay or something. Then I hear my husband screaming. I tell Jason to stay in bed and NOT come downstairs. I run downstairs and see blood everywhere. It was awful. Then I see Tim dragging Diego out the back door. Scrappy is attached to Diego’s side in a clamp down.

Then Tim looks at me and says something along the lines of “I’m going to faint”. I run over to him and only then realize it is his blood all over the house. His arms are ripped open. I kept saying it was muscle but now I’m wondering if it was fat. The bite marks are so deep in some places and look like fake vampire bites. You know, the drawn on kind.

I brought him to the sink and he slumps into it. The blood is everywhere and it isn’t slowing down. I run and get our first aid kit. At that point I wasn’t exactly sure who caused the ruptures in Tim’s skin and I look at Tim and say, “I can’t get rid of Scrappy”. I know that is such a strange thing to say but Scrappy has been with me longer than Tim, the kids, the new dog…he has been mine since he was a puppy. I’m overwhelmed with the most nauseating emotion.

Tim looks at me and says, “No, this was Diego. Scrappy came and got into his food and they started fighting. It got bad so I broke it up, Diego looked right through me and just started attacking.” It was the most horrible scene I have ever witnessed.

So I tried to patch Tim up as best I could, while calling his mom and telling her to hurry over so I can bring Tim to the ER. Tim was sick, almost throwing up. It was obviously super traumatic for him. We agreed that the dog had to go. I don’t know when we even talked about it but somehow we agreed on it out loud. I was about to cry, I don’t cry. Ever. I’m such a hard ass about tears.

I took him to the ER and they immediately did “patch work” on him. They make us fill out a form about the dog attacking. In Florida it is 2 strikes so they won’t destroy him, or so they tell us. However they tell me it will be hours before Tim is seen and I should go home and look into my options.

I left Tim and his mom came to the hospital to be with him. He is in a ton of pain.

I came home and called around. Finally the Emergency Vet tells me the best thing for families of animals they consider to be “part of the family” is the SPCA. They will take your dog, listen to your story and assess the situation over a few weeks. Then they make the decision if the dog is adoptable or needs to be destroyed. We never have to know.

I was a mess. I talked to Allie with No Time For Flashcards, she is a dear friend of mine, we’ve been friends for nearly 5 years I think. I cried to her for at least an hour. I am against the death penalty in even the most heinous situations. It’s just who I am. So putting down an animal, especially one I consider a family member, forget it. I’m a mess. I couldn’t look in the backyard because I needed to remember Diego as a vicious animal or else I wouldn’t be able to let him go. It was killing me as I sat there not to check on him. But I knew I couldn’t.

The following day we were required to bring Diego to the Animal Control and they quarantine him for 10 days. We had the option of getting him back but we refused. They said they would assess him and then decide whether or not he is adoptable or needs to be put down. This is very hard for me. I know that Diego could be a good dog for a family with no other animals or children. I honestly do not believe he needs to be put down.

Now our family is just recovering. I probably miss him the most but Tim misses him a lot too. Tim really loved the dog. Spencer is too young to know the difference and Jason doesn’t seem too concerned. We’ve decided we won’t try to have another dog until Scrappy passes away and the kids are older and then we’ll get a puppy and train it from “scratch”.

It was a heartbreaking situation. I care about animals as much as people. About two weeks after we got Diego I made the decision he was family and was never leaving. It breaks my heart that I had to be the one to get rid of him, but I know it was the right thing to do for my family.

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