conflicts of interest

By now, you all should have picked up on my slightly irrational love of animals. I am one of those people that would jump in front of a bus for my dog. (Of course I wouldn't let him wander out in front of a bus in the first place, but you get my point).

I was so proud of one of my new friends when he and his new wife adopted a dog from the shelter for her little boy. I know very well that she did not come from a mutt-friendly family: the day I met her mother, she told me all about the King Charles Spaniel she had tucked under her arm, how she had found the perfect breeder and paid him $1200 for the dog, then shelled out another $600 to "have him trained," as in she did not participate in the training as well.

So when Lee said they were adopting an abandoned dog, I was surprised and thrilled for them. It's always been my belief that mutts make better pets, especially those from a shelter-- they appreciate you more, suffer fewer health problems than over-bred dogs, and though they have their issues, no dog is perfect and adopting a previously discarded animal gives you a sense of doing something good for the world.

I met their puppy a few of times. Dottie, a black short-haired Pug/Cocker Spaniel mix, was very friendly and curious though sometimes shy about new animals and people. Lee told me that she was a little bit food aggressive, meaning she'd snap at other animals that came near her bowl. This is typical with shelter dogs (most of them had to at one point fight for scraps of food) but is easily trained away.

Another friend, Cindy, has a spoiled rotten little rat of a dog. While I think Cindy is a sweet person, her main flaw is in the way she has raised that dog. It jumps all over, licks, body slams and nips at other dogs, runs around like all she feeds it is sugar and Red Bull, and just generally makes life miserable for the rest of us. She chases him saying, sweetly, "Manny, honey, stop it," which of course does absolutely no good.

So Dottie bit Manny. Of course she did; if I were a dog I would have too. Manny ran up to Dottie as she was eating, pushed her, scared her, and jumped in her food. Dottie took offense and bit her. She didn't break the skin but Manny squealed and cowered under her mother long enough that the two human moms thought something terrible had happened. Cindy overreacted and took Manny home, so Lee overreacted as well.

There are so many ways in which this could have been avoided-- training Manny and Dottie both properly, not feeding a slightly-food aggressive dog when other dogs are around, and even just keeping cool and acting like adults with dogs and not little girls with baby dolls would have helped.

No, I didn't live with the dog so I only witnessed the aggression once or twice, but after seeing the way they reacted to her snapping at Manny I can only believe that it's not as bad as they made it out to be. I've spent a lot of time with animals, and what Dottie did can be completely trained away.

But apparently she sheds as well. (Does anyone know of a dog that doesn't at least to some degree?) So that with the snapping was enough for Lee to take her back to the shelter, even though her son loved that dog, and even though she had made a commitment to the shelter, her son, and most importantly to Dottie that she would take care of her and love her for the rest of her life. It's not like when you get divorced and both adults walk away able to take care of themselves or even when you put a child up for adoption and some other family or the system raises it. Humans have a choice. Dogs do not. 70% of dogs at that shelter get put down because in this state, not enough people care about these animals, people don't think about how their actions are going to cause the death of this animal. So long as it's out of their life, that's all that matters to them. It's selfish and moronic and makes me so angry I could spit.

I saw Lee and her husband this weekend. Her husband and I have been friends for a while, through other friends, so we're going to keep seeing each other whether I like it or not. I could barely look at them. There is no getting past this for me-- there is now a line between them and me that will never go away. I didn't know about them taking the dog back until it was too late. I didn't have a chance to talk them out of it or at least help them find her a new home. Now anything I want to say to them feels like too little, too late.

I have so many lines drawn. I still see most of these people, the ones who have said or done that one thing that has caused me to wet my finger and stroke it across the air between us, but I wall myself up when I see them, look at them through glazed-over eyes, counting all the stupid things they say and do when I'm near them. I don't do this to everyone... it takes an especially dumb or rude moment for me to put someone on this list. Lee and her husband are now at the top.