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mararupners

Late last Friday afternoon, I headed out to the grocery store, taking advantage of my husband being home early to get this annoying errand out of the way before the weekend. Got the groceries, loaded the car, and I’m heading home feeling all organized and on top of things when my phone rings. It’s my neighbor, which is odd, because she usually texts, so I had a funny feeling something was up.

But this I was not expecting: “Your dog is on the roof!”

Uhm, what?!?!?!

I called Aini, told him, he hung up as soon as I got the words out, and the rescue mission was completed before I made it home. There was my girl, safe and sound, looking extremely pleased with herself.

How did this happen? Well…

One of Ogle’s favorite spots in the house is on my son’s bed, which is on the second floor, right up against a window. She spends much of the day there, keeping an eye on things. We call it her guard tower. And now, with the hot weather, we’ve been leaving the window open. There is a screen, or course. Or, I should say, there was a screen…

That afternoon, the damn deer were back, and the prey drive is strong in this one. Like, really strong. Despite all of our best efforts to date, when Ogle sees or smells deer, she still goes primal, just 100% loses her shit. All the things she knows about stay and leave it and come and stop go right out the fucking window. (ha! see what I did there?).

Apparently she had been in the yard and a couple of deer showed up in the lot behind ours, so to prevent her from jumping over, crawling under, or knocking down our fences, Aini put her inside. Which seemed like the right move, right?

UNLESS there is an open window that happens to be level with a porch roof, through which you can still smell the deer. Deer that must be hunted, at all costs, screens be damned. And so off she went.

This dog will be the death of me. At least she had the sense not to jump.

Our Story

Some days are just ordinary days, and some days are the kinds of days on which, without warning, everything tilts.

Friday, January 6, 2023 was one of those kinds of days.

I was working from home. My husband Aini took our two-year old dog Ogle to the dog park. It’s their thing. She gets a bunch of exercise and he gets to chit chat with his dog peeps.

They were gone for a long time. And when he got home, he came into my office. Pale. Shaky. He sat down. And proceeded to tell me that Ogle had chased down and brutally attacked another dog. There were multiple deep bites; the other dog was taken to the emergency vet. Ogle didn’t have a scratch.

The next few days were a blur of tears and severe anxiety and text message exchanges with the other owner. The other dog recovered. We drained our savings and borrowed money to pay the vet bills.

We looked at our dog with new eyes. We looked at ourselves with new eyes. What the hell had just happened? And what the hell do we do now?

True confession. After much soul-searching and research, we did try to rehome her. We had visions of her living with more competent owners, on a couple of acres of land, with fewer stressors. A place where she could be who she is. But…an adult dog with a bite history. Who would want to take her? Turns out, nobody.

So here she still is. And here we still are. And this blog is a reflection on our continued journey with this intense, wonderful, complicated, smart, anxious, beautiful and incredibly challenging dog.