When Pets & Your Sweetie Collide
My piece for WebMD called Your Partner vs. Your Pet went live earlier this week. Since there doesn’t seem to be a place to discuss over there, I’m posting a link here so that we can chat a bit about it. So, I guess now is as good a time as any to tell you the story of Gilbert, the dog we gave up.
It’s a dark, sad tale from my dog-loving life. Gilbert was a Doberman Pincher we adopted back in early 2000. After 10 days, we returned him to the municipal shelter, as stipulated in our adoption contract. They euthanized him. We had been his last chance.
I’ve said before that I believe very much in the motto: Dog Girl, Know Thyself.
I learned two lessons from Gilbert, rest his soul, and the heartbreak we had over our failed adoption:
- I cannot live with a dog I do not trust.
- He who came first, comes first.
Gilbert had aggression issues, along with a truly compulsive marking problem. Like he whizzed on anything and EVERYTHING non-stop. Not just a few times a day. All day. Every day.
We were prepared to deal with that, and we had plans to meet with a behaviorist about it, but Gilbert didn’t take to me or our Dalmatian, who was older and somewhat frail at the time. (I see now how he is leaning away from me in this old photo. Poor boy.)
Penelope Grace (our Dal) and I did not feel safe around Gilbert, and since we were home alone with him a lot, that was pretty scary.
When I say he was aggressive, I don’t mean reactive. I don’t mean noisy, pushy, strong. He was completely SILENT, with that predatory thing about him, that I-have-intent look in his eyes. Something truly was not right.
A growly, barking dog isn’t ideal, but the quiet ones, with intense body language, scare me much, much more.
I probably would have done better around Gilbert if I knew then what I know now, but at the time, I was simply afraid.
The breaking point for me came when he took a mouthful of my sweatshirt and would NOT let go. He wasn’t playing. He. Was. Serious.
Rather than get into an altercation with him and risk a bite, I sat down at the picnic table in the back yard and waited, and waited, and waited. I honestly don’t remember how I got him to let go, but I did.
When I couldn’t get help from the behaviorist for weeks and weeks, I called one of my very experienced friends in the animal rescue and animal shelter community, and she essentially said, “You do exactly as I say, right now, and you get that dog out of your house before he hurts you.”
Penelope and I stayed away from Gilbert until Tom got home, and I sobbed the entire drive to the shelter. I still cry today when I think about it.
Tom has always wanted a Dobe, and Gilbert was his pick, after our lab-mix Cody died from hemangiosarcoma. Tom’s earlier dog Spike (aka Cone Dog) was dobe + great dane.
So, I guess you could say that Tom chose me over Gilbert in the who-came-first model. I preceded Penelope. Penelope preceded Gilbert. Our needs in the family came first.
It wasn’t a decision either of us made lightly. It still makes me terribly sad. I wish there had been better temperament testing back then. I wish I’d known more about dog behavior and dog training. I wish it had worked out because he was indeed an amazing specimen of a dog.
This experience is one of many that drive our more careful, more informed dog adoption decisions going forward.
The next day, when Tom’s father died somewhat unexpectedly. What came next consumed us, and we probably would not have had the time or energy (or skill) to figure the Gilbert dynamics out.
What’s your story?
Have you ever had to make a choice between your dog (or cat) and a romantic partner? Do tell. Which one did you pick and why?