Lessons learned

My son was bit on Tuesday, right on the lip, by a dog we didn't know. Let me answer your questions in the order they occur to you::

1) Cocker spaniel
2) He's OK, just has a fat lip.
3) No, he didn't do anything to provoke it.

As a "dog person," in general, and a pit bull owner specifically, the first question I always have and always hear after a biting incident is: "What kind of dog was it?"

It was startling, bloody (oh how head wounds bleed!) and a bit painful for Josh. It was startling and concerning for me -- not only had my son been bitten, but if this had been a pit bull or a "pit bull-type dog" as too many mutts are now called, it could have been headline news. Ultimately, though, it just presented a whole lotta teachable moments.

Josh knows his way around dogs of all kinds and all sizes, even though he's not quite 12. He and his sister had to learn about the characteristics and behaviors of pit bulls before I even considered bringing Hathaway home. Both kids are knowledgeable and conscientious, but they're also kids and sometimes they forget.

Josh loves dogs and they love him. He was not doing anything obvious to make a dog feel threatened and bite (teasing, startling, cornering etc ...) He gave it his hand to sniff. The spaniel licked it. He bent over a little to pat it on the head and the dog jumped up and bit him. No growl, no warning.

Thankfully, it was one bite, not an attack, and it didn't happen to a more delicate part of his face. It was a reminder to him to keep his face away from strange dogs and to ask the owner if it's OK to pet the animal. It's also a reminder that different actions are threatening to different dogs: Maybe his bending down scared it. 

The woman was shocked when I told her her dog bit my son. Her first question was "Did he have food?" (No) and then "Can I see?" (Uh, sure, just please don't touch his blood-covered face.) I also explained that there are a lot of younger kids at the park at that time of day that will be much less cautious about approaching her dog than my kid was. Hopefully she got the message.

For me, the incident reinforces my belief that EVERY dog -- regardless of breed -- has some trigger that will cause it to bite a person, and it's the owner's responsibility to learn what it is (or assume what it could be) and avoid that situation.

My dog has not bitten anyone and I don't think he would, but I watch as if he might. I have always handled my dogs this way, and always will, whether I have a house full of pit bulls or pugs.

We need a bigger bed

It's been three and a half years and there's still a pit bull in my bed. But like any couple that's been together for awhile, we don't always see eye to eye on certain things, and that has nothing to do with Hathaway being only knee high. For instance, he thinks it's his bed. (He can get his own blog.)

More often than not these days, he takes up all the bed, or at least two-thirds, leaving me a little tiny sliver of space with not enough blanket to cover my bottom. It's winter in New England, it can get a little drafty.

I'm not really sure how he manages to nudge me out as much as he does. I get in bed first, and stake my claim close to the middle of the bed. He has his own pillow and part of the fleece blanket he so loves, but I have most of the bed. Once he finally moseys upstairs, he snuggles up in either the crook of my knees or in what would be my lap -- the yin to my yang and all that metaphysical stuff.

But during the course of the night, he manages to inch me further and further from the center toward the edge, and I wake up on the short end of everything. Have you ever tried to move 70 solid pounds of stubborn dead weight? You need a plan.

What has evolved is our own little midnight waltz that involves strategic timing and hip checks so I actually get some space, some covers and a pillow. If I squirm enough, he is roused from his beauty sleep and has to reposition himself. When he starts to move, I throw a hip check one way, perfectly timed with pulling the covers the other way. Voila! Back to center. Often, I end up with a pit bull on my hip, but it's a bony hip and not very comfortable for him, so he has to move.

He doesn't move far, just repositions himself in one of those niches where he feels safe. At least until he scoots up and stretches out. Most mornings I wake up to whiskers and a cold nose on the pillow next to me, attached to a warm pit bull contentedly snoring away.

Back where he should be

Do you 'ear what I 'ear?  Hathaway was resting comfortably after ear surgery and tooth removal yesterday. For a little while anyway. Let's just say he hates the Cone of Shame (picture to come) and can't get comfortable in it. I have to admit it was kind of funny watching him try to navigate down steps and through doorways, but after the stress and worry of the last couple of days, I think I'm allowed a chuckle.

Anyway, a fast-growing lump was removed from his left ear. We weren't sure how much tissue they'd have to remove and cropping the ear was a possibility. Fortunately, it didn't come to that and he still has two floppy Dumbo ears.We should have biopsy results next week.

Pit bulls deserve a break today

Dear McDonald's,

Wanna know what's risky? Offending pit bull owners across the country.

Social media was all a-Twitter today with the McDonald's radio ad for its new menu item. Several of the pit bull groups I follow via Facebook posted a notice as well. The radio spot says trying a new menu item at the fastfood chain isn't risky, and suggests somethings that are ... like petting a stray pit bull.

I wanted to embed the YouTube clip here, but guess what -- it's been pulled.

See, McDonald's underestimated the response not only of owners, but animal activists, rescue organizations and many others. It's pretty amazing that a company that big, didn't have one person who stood up to say "Hey, should we think about this for a minute? Getting breed-specific can be pretty touchy." We are hoping this doesn't affect the rescue efforts of the Animal Protection Center or other shelters.

The ad could have simply said, "You know what's risky? Petting a stray dog. That's risky."

Instead, they went the other way. I hope the fallout is huge and lasts a little longer than the usual outrage over stupid advertising mistakes. Responsible pit bull owners work too hard to change the image that media continues to perpetrate to have it blown with at 30-second commercial for an artery-clogging conglomerate.

Casey-Leigh Stock, an organizer with the New England Bully Breed Club, drafted a fabulous letter to the company, reminding anyone who reads it that this is an old and noble breed made up of war heroes and "nanny dogs."

There's a nagging little part of my brain that says McDonald's new what the fallout would be and was banking on the free media. In a way, I feel like I'm playing into their greasy corporate hands.

At the same time, I don't really care. My daughter has refused to eat a that place since seeing "Super Size Me," although I've tried to point out everything in that movie that was manipulated to make a point. Now, she has a real reason, as does the rest of my family.

The only reason I'll take them to McDonald's after today is so Hathaway can make his own little golden arch on the sign out front.

Eight days a week

Alas, my days of Hathaway have turned into weeks. Whether it's a matter of being lazy or being busy, I'm not sure. Maybe being busy makes me lazy. And being lazy makes me look up quotes.

It's the first thing they teach you in Journalism School -- leading with a quote is cliche (read: lazy). Sometimes if I'm stuck for a lead, I'll look up a quote just to kick-start the battery; it's kind of like jumper cables for my brain, a little spark for the thought process.

So, I looked up quotes (at brainyquote.com no less) about days and weeks and found some from some fellows I find quite insightful and downright entertaining, like Mark Twain:

"I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up."

And George Bernard Shaw:

"Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week."

I do think at least once or twice a week. I'm finding that sometimes, it's the remembering that's the problem. This morning, for instance, I got the kids up and fed and off to school with snacks and lunches and homework. I got the dog fed and dressed and walked and relieved and settled. I got myself together and to the train on time. I put in productive hours, got home, shoveled the driveway, finished some unfinished business and got the dogs together for their afternoon excursion.

And I couldn't find Hathaway's sweater. I took it off him after our morning walk and hung it up, just not in it's "spot." The sweater has a "spot" so I neither have to think nor remember when it comes to dressing the dog on a cold morning. And the spot was empty. I looked all over, but couldn't remember where I left it, no matter how hard I thought. The kids couldn't find it either.

We took our walk without the sweater, and thankfully without much shivering. The dogs ate, and I sat down to blog, without an idea beyond googling "week."

And sitting here typing, being neither lazy nor busy, not necessarily thinking and certainly not remembering, I found the sweater. Hanging on the bedroom closet door at eye level. In the right place (closet door) but wrong spot (different closet).

I'm guessing there's probably a moral to this story. Maybe I should google "Aesop."

12 Days of Hathaway -- Day 8

The pit bull is snoozing next to me all cozy on the fleece blanket, right where he should be.

Some days you are quickly reminded that your friends will be there when you need them. Late yesterday afternoon we helped search for Trudy, a hound dog being fostered by our friend Melissa from the dog park.

Being a hound, Trudy followed her nose and ran off after a scent. The scent led her along the shoreline at the dog park, which however, leads under a state highway to another park that's vastly larger. Trudy, who is available for adoption from the Quincy Animal Shelter, had been missing nearly 3 hours by the time we showed up at the park, and she could have been anywhere in the miles and miles along the river or through the woods between Hingham and Weymouth. And honestly, the idea of her being lost in the woods was not nearly as bad as the idea of her trying to cross the busy, busy road to get back to the dog park as it got dark.

Trudy is a really nice dog, but is wary, and not likely to come to someone she isn't too familiar with. And if she's scared, she'll bark at you, so catching her was going to be a challenge even if it wasn't getting cold and dark.

Dozens of people helped look for Trudy. The kids, Jim and our friend Kevin, along with the dogs, decided to look at the bigger park as darkness fell. We could hear a hound barking and more than than a dozen people helped move her through the woods to a spot where another group could catch her.

Trudy was safe, making for a heart-warming happy ending to the evening for both the dog and her foster mom, who works so hard to take care of her. The heart-lifting part of the story, though, is seeing how many people helped look for her without a thought and without being asked.

Given the size of the area Trudy was in, as well as its challenges -- the road, the weather, the water, the darkness, the coyotes -- it's hard to imagine the story could have had the same outcome without them.

12 Days of Hathaway - Day 7

No, I don't know where the time goes, but we'll get to 12 days one way or another. This was supposed to be posted for Christmas day. So merry, merry and all that.

I hope all our friends and followers had as nice a holiday as we did. Notice the juxtapositions in the picture between Nina/Hath and Josey/Josh. Yep, the looks on their faces pretty much sum it all up.