On Monday night, my husband & I had to do something that we didn’t think we would need to do for a very, very long time — say goodbye to our three year old beagle, Bailey. He was the victim of a vicious, vicious attack by our neighbors dog, and the damage was too much for his little body. He held on long enough to make it to the emergency clinic, but I think it was the pain that was keeping him awake.
I had been in Denver for a few days for the wedding of one of my good friends. Monday night, my husband picked me up from the airport and we headed home. We arrived to our house to a swarm of police officers, animal control and neighbors rushing our car. My first thought was “great — here we go again.” We have seriously ghetto neighbors and seeing police at their house isn’t new.
Our good neighbor, Linda, came rushing to the car asking where our dogs were. I looked up and saw a dog wrapped in a blanket in the neighbors yard. Breathing, but covered in mud.
My first thought was “Fuck.” I ran into the backyard to see if the dogs were there. The two big ones came running straight to the door, but Bailey was nowhere to be found. Our neighbors dog had attacked before on two separate occasions. Both times our Lab had taken the brunt of it. The neighbors dog has a habit of ripping off fence boards in order to get to our dogs. Typically he can create a hole just big enough for a head or a small body to get through. My first thought when I couldn’t find Bailey was, that based on the condition of the dog in the neighbors yard, he was in bad shape somewhere. He crawled up somewhere to hide, right?
So I searched, and I searched and I searched some more. He wasn’t there.
My husband came running into the house saying “we have to go to urgent care.”
Why?
Just get in the car. We have to go.
Then it hit me. That dog in the neighbors yard? That was MY dog.
MY. DOG.
What the fuck happened? I couldn’t comprehend anything that was going on. See, for us, our animals are our family. They are our kids. We have no real kids of our own, and those dogs are our lives. We treat them better than most people treat their own children. So for me to not even be able to recognize my own dog, I knew it was bad.
The shock of what was going on kept me pretty calm. We loaded Bailey into the back of our SUV and my husband drove faster than I have ever seen him drive. I just stroked his face because I didn’t know where else to touch him. He was wrapped up in a blanket and I knew that the damage was so bad, but I was afraid to look. My husband would later tell me that he had broken legs, a punctured lung, puncture wounds all over his body, broken ribs, and massive, massive exposure in the chest area. A 30 pound beagle doesn’t really stand much of a chance against a 100 pound pit bull who has been trained to fight.
We got to the emergency vet clinic and rushed him in. The second I sat down to fill out the paperwork, I lost it. And truth be told, I haven’t been able to stop. When the vet tech came out two minutes later, she said that we had two choice — we could spend approximately $2000 on surgery, but the damage was so much that they didn’t think that he would make it through the surgery. If he DID, it would be a miracle if he lasted much longer than that. And who knows what they would find once they got in there.
Our second choice was to say goodbye.
At this point, I started hyperventilating. I knew what we had to do. I saw the pain that he was in. The dog that never stopped wagging it’s tail, even when he was being scolded? His tail was not wagging. I knew the choice that we had to make.
We were able to be in the room for a few minutes with him before the vet came in with the sedative. They said that they had given him a large dose of morphine seconds after we brought him in, & it was easing his pain. I could tell. He was slipping, & he was slipping fast. I just sat there with him, crying my eyes out, and telling him that he was a GOOD dog. That we LOVED him. That he was so good to us and that we were sorry.
We were so, so sorry.
I fell to the floor when the Vet told me he was gone.
Our hearts are so, so sad right now. I haven’t been dealing with this well at all. I took Tuesday off from work, and just laid on my couch all day. Going to bed is even worse, because I miss the little guy who used to keep my feet warm. It’s so very, very quiet in our house right now and I don’t really know how to deal with that. I’ve cried myself to sleep every night since.
My husband is angry. I haven’t really reached that point yet, although I’m getting close. And the dog that did this? Still in our neighbors back yard.We haven’t seen our neighbors since Monday night — they didn’t come over to see what the final result was. No apology. Nothing. Why the Fayetteville Animal Control did not TAKE the dog that instant (because a) it was still attacking Bailey when the police officer showed up and b) it then tried to attack the police officer) is beyond me. Us? We’re pressing charges, and more than likely will sue for all of the vet bills that we have piled up over the last year thanks to the other two attacks, as well as what it cost us to build the SECOND fence line in our backyard — which did no good once the dog got through the first fence and to ours. That process, though, I’m not really sure how to go about all of this. I do have half a mind to contact the press about this. Maybe light a fire under the Fayetteville Police & Animal Control’s asses.
RIP, buddy. You were the BEST friend we could ask for. Thank you for getting me through two deployments, and being my constant cuddle buddy when I was all alone. I miss you more than you know, & I hope you are running free, jumping on couches & eating all the treats you can handle. You are very, very missed and were truly loved.
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If you know me personally, or have read my
I had a conversation with one of my husbands long-time friends the other day, and we briefly talked about a lot of things husband related: his choice to re-enlist, why I don’t mind the Army or it’s lifestyle [anymore], how it grows on you, how his potential new career path in the military will have him deploying more, but for shorter amounts of time, and why we’re ok with that. At the end of this, she said something to me that struck a chord and made me twitch just a little.








