Bitten, not smitten

We said goodbye to foster dog #9 this morning. He spent a little less than 16 hours with us, and it was not a happy experience.

Cooper is a 9-year-old chihuahua mix, and I know that chihuahuas can be cranky and old dogs don't always do well with change. But he was supposed to be mellow and sweet. He would warm up slowly, they told us, and then he would just want to lie on the couch next to us while we worked. He was hostile toward the cats in his last foster home, they said, but they thought he would do well in a home without other animals. Oh, and by the way, he snapped at the woman in his last foster home for the first day or two; he preferred men to women. She stayed out of his way and it got better, she said.

Things we did not know going in: (A) he had only been in his last foster home for two days and (B) he came to this shelter because otherwise he was going to be put down due to behavior concerns.

I stashed a cheese stick in my pocket when I went to meet in him, and he nibbled delicately on morsels of cheese while we talked about him. He was nervous in the car on the way home, but we're used to that by now. New foster dogs are often nervous in the car on the way home. Having him here was fine at first. Or mostly fine -- there was a weird moment when I walked toward him and he snarled and snapped at my ankle, but I wasn't too worried.

But then he snapped at Pete, and he snapped at Stella. He wanted to camp out right next to Elwood, and in our small house that means we were walking near him to get from the kitchen from the living room. Not touching him, not moving in a loud or scary way -- but he was still scared. I started to wonder what had happened to this dog. Was he used to getting kicked when people walked by? What the heck was going on? He snapped at me for a second time when I went to put his leash on. Okay, I thought, maybe he doesn't want my hands near his neck while we're getting acquainted. 

Elwood was clearly his favorite; Cooper sought him out for pets and didn't mind at all for Elwood to put on his leash. But we have a deal in our house: Elwood doesn't mind how many dogs we foster, as long as he doesn't have to do very much of the work. This was not quite what he signed up for.

The weirdest thing for me is that this dog was happy to accept affection from me for a while. He would reach out his little front paw and stroke it across my hand twice to ask me to scratch behind his ears again. He asked me for belly rubs. He was eating out of my hand, for heaven's sake.

So I thought we were on good terms when he seemed to want to go out again. I squatted in front of him. I scooted the ring on his collar around to the back of his neck, thinking that might be less stressful for him than reaching toward his throat. I was the calmest, gentlest version of my calm and gentle self -- and with no fear or distress cues whatsoever he lunged forward and bit the heck out of my right knee.

"Well," I said aloud as I sat down on the couch and surveyed the hole in my pants. "Huh," I thought as I felt liquid inside my pants leg. "What could be wet on my knee? There shouldn't be anything wet inside the knee of my pants. Am I...bleeding?"

I was indeed bleeding. I emailed the foster coordinator, because a dog that bites with no warning is not a dog that can stay in the house with my children. Elwood assumed the mantle of Dog Caretaker, and the rest of us kept our distance.

But! Even that was not sufficient! Cooper got worried when I lowered the blinds, because apparently this is a menacing act in his sad little universe? He launched himself onto the couch and ripped another hole in my pants, though thankfully not in my actual flesh. This time I bellowed NO, STOP -- which seemed to cement his view that women are bad and scary. Kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, yeah? 

He continued to think that Elwood was the bees' knees, so Elwood slept on the couch with Cooper curled up at his feet, leashed and tethered to the coffee table to prevent any midnight peregrinations. The foster coordinator made a special early trip into town so we could hand him off before she went to work. She was hoping we would take another foster dog with us when we left, an easier dog, but I was like "NOT TODAY" and inwardly "MAYBE NOT EVER." 

It shook me up, you guys, the way he seemed to turn on a dime. One second he was fine, and the next second he was ripping holes in my pants. I was trying to play it down so I wouldn't alarm the kids last night, but WHAT THE HECK, COOPER?? I gave you cheese sticks and let you sit on my couch and in return you gouged holes in my leg with your teeth?!

It was weird to feel fear about a 10-pound dog. I am embarrassed to put it on the internet that I felt scared of a 10-pound dog. But a dog that does not have inhibitions about hurting a person can do some damage to a person who is not expecting it, even if he only weighs 10 pounds. Pete and I were talking it over today. (Pete, the gentlest teenager you'll ever meet, the person most likely to shed a tear when we take a foster dog to be adopted, saw the bite happen and described his reaction thus: "I wanted to vault over and snap his little neck.") What would we have done if Cooper had also been weird and unpredictable with Elwood, or if Elwood hadn't been around? Could we have restrained him without hurting him badly? 

I don't know. I'm still thinking about it, though. That was No Fun.

Comments

[mandamum]

My husband got unexpectedly bitten by a neighborhood dog while walking down the street, staying on our side to keep out of its (little yippy attitude) way. But it ran right over to where we were, and showed my husband's ankle who was boss. And then its owner, right there but oblivious, denied it happened - "Oh, he doesn't bite!" Um, yeah, the hole in my ankle says otherwise - can we see his rabies vaccine record??

Our evening walks for the next months were affected by a mental recoil around that block, and all small dogs made my dog-loving husband really nervous for quite a while. Kind of a bummer.

It seems like if it was "foster or put down for behavior" you'd need to give the foster people MORE info and support, rather than less. (And kudos to Elwood for his gracious response - I'm the non-dog-person who provides vet taxi service when needed in our house, and I would be hard pressed to do anything other than show the guest to a spare crate for the night, and probably for the rest of his visit.)

[Calee]

My almost 6-foot tall daughter is terrified of chihuahuas. There was a mean one in our old neighborhood that we finally had to encourage her to kick if it tried to bite her while she was rollerblading. She never did, but she's still very skittish around them. Good call.

[mary d]

Oh no. I am so sorry. THat is so scary and I don't care how small that dog is, it can do some serious damage. Mandamum is right, they should've given you more information and made sure you were up for this.

[Jody]

I am really sorry. I also agree that they should have given you more info, and I so unhappy about that piece, I question whether you should ever foster for them again.

Also, chihuahuas are notoriously bad tempered. And spouse was hit twice last summer by previously friendly dogs. This has been a rough year for pack animals, I think.

I’m sorry, and I hope you heal quickly. If the bite was any kind of puncture, please see a doctor. Spouse was on antibiotics for a week after the second bite.

[K.]

The small dogs are not any less alarming. My mother-in-law has a dachshund who seems to have been abused before the adoption...it's been at least a decade and the dachshund's still not safe to have uncontrolled around my small kids when we visit. I can't tell whether my MIL is just a better person than me to keep her and put all the time and attention and hope into her, or whether I am right that wherever she belongs, it's not and has never been in suburbia.