Goodbye, Ranger

This has been a very difficult week.

Innocent spectators were killed in the Boston Marathon bombings.

Citizens and first responders died in the fertilizer plant explosion in West.

My daughter got stitches after being bitten in the jaw by a dog (our dog).

And we had to give up our dog.

It hardly seems worth mentioning that last thing after all the other tragedy in the world, but I'm sad. And I need to write about this and post some pictures as a part of my grieving process, I suppose.

We got Texas Ranger from the local humane society last May. A couple of months after getting him, Campbell stuck his face down near the dog's and growled at him. Ranger bit him in the cheek. It was traumatic, and we discussed giving the dog back, but we decided Campbell had provoked him, and perhaps we could train both of them on how to act around each other.

Last fall, a neighbor boy was walking past Ranger in the yard. Ranger was chewing on a cucumber (I know; weird, but he likes cucumbers). The boy reached down to pat him on the head. Ranger bit his arm. It didn't break the skin, but it caused a big, bloody bruise.

We discussed the possible need to give the dog away, but we decided instead to research "resource guarding", train our dog and our kids as much as possible, and put him in his crate when other children were around.

Another time, Campbell got into Ranger's crate, just playing around. Ranger went in with him, somebody banged on the side of the crate, and Ranger bit Campbell's ear.

We had a dog behavior expert come out to the house and give us advice. We moved Ranger's crate to the garage, so he could only have access to it with our permission, and thus become less possessive of it. We continued to talk to the kids about resource guarding and how to be careful around the dog, as well as how to help train him.

Campbell still loved Ranger and enjoyed playing with him. And I think Ranger loved all of us, too. Here he is cuddling with Campbell when Cam was sick.

This past Sunday, Ranger had been sitting on the couch with Helene for an hour. We were all sitting around together, reading.

She snuggled her face close to his, and he bit her.

She SNUGGLED him. No excuses now. No time to think about further training and ways we could make it work. I'm not going to train my children to NOT SNUGGLE the pets. We had to take him back to the humane society. Of course he immediately (after biting her) looked guilty. If possible to see this on the face of a dog, he really seemed to be thinking, "OMG. Where did that come from? I'm so sorry!"

I know it was the right thing to do. He cannot be in a house with children. I hope somebody will adopt him who can keep him out of situations where this might happen again. But I'm sad. He really was a sweet dog. To tell the truth, he loved me more than anyone else in the family. He would crawl up in bed with me in the mornings after John got up to get ready and I was still sleeping. John would come to kiss me goodbye, and Ranger would growl at him, protective of me.

I get in bed at night and look for him. I wake up in the morning and think it's time to let him out. I shovel snow and look for him to come play along.