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We have a bad dog. Mostly bad, anyhow. We love him, but he's a jerk. We've worked with him on behavioral issues, but we're (I think) his fourth family, and we've come to accept that he has burned bridges in his past, and we're the end of the line for him. So we love him, care for him, and try and keep people away from him, but he's bitten both of us, and when our backs are turned, bitten other folks. We warn them, but well, some folks don't listen — drunk folks, and sadly, toddlers.
Yes, our harboring of this beast has shamefully led to pain for toddlers. Shame on us. Somehow, it hasn't cost us any friends. It maybe should have.
He's angry when I pick him up. He's angry when I put him down. He's angry when I don't let him on the bed. He's angry when I do. His main saving grace is that he accepts his role as a comfort dog. When somebody's upset he comes over to them and asks to picked up and squeezed. Very strange.
Anyhow, we have no kids for him to injure, so we figure, this is our cross. But then, he gets this growth on his knee. We think it's benign, but it's biggish, so we take him in, and the doctor takes the bloodwork. Turns out, that they can't operate, because he's got an elevated liver count — whatever that means.
But we put him on medication to get the liver count down (he's apparently got hundreds of livers), and he's become this sweetheart — looking to please, playing the comfort dog even when nobody's upset, happy to be picked up, delighted to be placed down, looking to play, holding mommy's chair out before dinner, offering to run errands, doing minor plumbing and electrical repair jobs while we're at work.
What happens? Do we look at this as the dog mellowing with age as his mortality confronts him? Do we keep him medicated even after we arrest his elevated liver whatever (if we can, in fact, succeed at this)? Is that ethical? I kind of feel like I'm betraying Baddog if I am in fact turning him into Gooddog with a magic pill. But holy crap, suddenly I have a good dog. And a happier family. I feel like... what I imagine other folks feel like.
Here he is in the bad days using his sister as a pillow.
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