The Right Thing

Sandy got torn up by a Rottweiler cross the other day. This was a dog she knew and had been around many times. There were three dogs and two people, and suddenly the Rottie had Sandy on the ground with her paw on Sandy’s chest and her teeth buried in Sandy’s neck.

I pulled the other dog off, took a look at Sandy and phoned the vet to say we were on the way. Sandy had a deep wound in her right shoulder that needed stitches and a drain, puncture wounds under both her front legs, and tooth marks on her left foreleg. The Rottie was not fooling around. She was unhurt; Sandy never put up a fight.

The Rottie’s owner called me to see how Sandy was doing. I gave her the good news: her dog missed all the important stuff like blood vessels and tendons and internal organs. The bad news was the vet bill, and I asked for her help with it. Later she called and said that she didn’t believe that she was responsible for the vet bill, and that her dog would never have started the fight, and she was surprised that I would ask her for money.

What is the right thing?

In my mind, the right thing would have been for her to offer to help, or at least to agree to help when I asked. I believe, as she does, that we are each responsible for our own dogs, but I take that to mean that we are responsible for what our own dogs inflict on other dogs regardless of who looked at who sideways first.

She says no. Her dog has never done that before, and it couldn’t have been her dog’s fault, and it was irresponsible of me to ask for help with the bill. She didn’t say she couldn’t afford it. She said she wasn’t responsible for helping.

This makes me sad and it confuses me because I thought of her as a friend. I like her very much, and it’s hard to accept that we can be so far apart on something as fundamental as what is the right thing.


Sandy and I have a pact. I ask her to curb her natural tendency to brawl with other pushy female dogs, and in return I look out for her and try to put her in situations where she can succeed. Over the past two years we have worked very hard on this. I need her to trust me, and when she does I need to measure up.

The other day in the off-leash area, I wasn’t paying close enough attention to Sandy. She wanted to leave, and I kept talking to the Rottie’s owner. The Rottie came close to Sandy, taking up her space, pushing her over. Sandy knew she wasn’t allowed to fight; she submitted. She walked away. She came to me when I called her, but I still didn’t leave. That’s when the Rottie went for her, and Sandy never fought back.

What is the right thing?

Maybe by insisting on what other dogs see as submissive behavior I left her vulnerable to this attack. I let Sandy down by not leaving when she needed to. I left her in a situation where she was not going to succeed. She knew what is the right thing. She tried to tell me. I didn’t listen.

Dogs Are Not Cats

Last weekend Sandy had to stay in the kennel. She never has a real good time, and I can see why. The lady who runs the kennel is nice to her. She's nice to all the dogs. But it's not great staying in a cage all day, and wondering what happened to your people.

When I came to pick Sandy up on Monday morning, she was ecstatic. She ran to me. She jumped in the air. She barked. She rushed into the car. She rushed out of the car. She jumped in the air. She barked some more.

Dogs are not cats. A cat would've ignored me for three times as long as she had to stay in the kennel. But not my dog. Not any dog. That's what I like about dogs. They love us.

How Does She Get So Dirty All The Time?

Sandy likes the Enterprise off-leash area. There’s an interesting pond there, and it turns out its so shallow she can run across it to the other side.


Enterprise Off-Leash Area

The first time she realized that, she was already ON the other side. I thought she’d head for the hills, but when I called her, she came running around the pond and showed up at the gate to the OLA. She was so proud of herself! It must have been just like a Disneyland ride. “Open the gate! I want to try that again!” And she did, several times. Charging across the pond, waiting until I called her, and then running up to the gate so I could let her back in again.


After a few circuits around the pond, Sandy shakes the dog. This doesn't mean the dog is dry.

The pond has bull rushes growing around it so dogs can disappear into the pond. There's plenty of room to run on dry land as well, and bunnies on the other side of the fence in the Shaw cable equipment yard. It's a great place to dig a hole.


There is something good between the top of this hole and the bottom of it.

Just past the off-leash area are the dirt trails to the places where homeless guys live, and people let their dogs run free. There are railroad tracks. There's a creek. There're lots of good smells. People come to watch the birds. Apparently, this place is on some sort of list of good places to go to watch the birds. One day Sandy and I were in the off-leash area when I noticed a couple watching us from the other side of the fence.

It turns out they were from out of town, and they thought the area was fenced to keep dogs out. I had to explain to them that here in Kelowna, dogs aren't allowed to go anywhere unless they're fenced in. They were amazed. It made no sense to them. When I thought about it made no sense to me, either.

Today the dog association had a little cleanup of the Enterprise OLA. In less than 30 minutes, half a dozen of us cleaned up the park. We didn't find much dog poop, but we did find lots of other interesting stuff. I thought I had the find the day with the baggie of stems and seeds. But someone else found three unopened beers! I swear to God we're licensing the wrong species.