Thank You and I'm Sorry

First off, thank you. We have the best friends and family in the world and have received the most supportive emails, texts, phone calls, cards, and blog comments. My brother even brought us flowers. We are still just sad and dealing with that feeling that there is a huge hole where part of our hearts used to be. We chose to have Bailey cremated and her ashes returned to us. We received the ashes yesterday and I don't think I am dealing with that very well. Where there was once a big, beautiful golden dog we now have a cedar box full of ashes and a certificate honoring the devoted friend of "Brian and Mary" (yes, missing a 'c').  Brian is doing a much better job than I am at understanding that the box contains ashes and not the real Bailey; he wants to scatter them at Bailey's favorite place. At this point, I can't even picture letting the ashes go; it just seems too final.

Second, I'm sorry. I really hope I haven't freaked people out about dogs and babies. The truth of the matter is that Bailey was not a normal dog who just snapped one day; she has never been what you would consider a typical golden retriever. I thought I would write this so that people could see some of the warning signs that we had and didn't take seriously enough.

Bailey wasn't even supposed to be my dog. My brother has always been the type to get ideas of things he just "has to have" and he usually acts on them. This time, his idea was that our family really needed a golden retriever puppy. My dad, a total dog-lover, supported Todd as he called various newspaper ads until he found a breeder who had a female puppy. I had recently graduated from A&M and was living at home with my parents until my wedding, and I must admit that I was excited too...who doesn't love a puppy, right? My mom was the only one who wasn't thrilled with the idea because she figured she'd be the one stuck with doing all the potty training, cleanup, etc. while the rest of us just enjoyed playtime with the puppy. But the three of us were too caught up in the excitement of our impulse buy to listen, and off we went to pick up our newest family member.

As Bailey settled into the household it became obvious that raising her was going to be no easy task. My dad had a job, my mom was working outside the home at the time, and my brother was in college. I had the summer off before I started grad school in the fall, and even then I would be taking almost all of my classes online, leaving me at home the majority of the time. Bailey quickly went from "our" dog to "my" dog. I got up with her at the crack of dawn each morning and assumed responsibility for her training. I didn't know much about raising a puppy so I did what any good librarian-to-be would do: I researched. As I found information about how to raise a puppy, I also found information about how to buy a puppy...as in, what to look for in a breeder, red flags to watch for, and the meaning of the term "backyard breeder." Bailey's "breeders" definitely fit that description; there was no doubt in my mind that they never should have been breeding their dogs.

By that time, Bailey was already exhibiting several traits non-typical to a golden: she was extremely mouthy and did not love people and other dogs. We continued trying our best to socialize her: I took her to the lake, to the park, to pet stores, on daily walks, to friends' houses, basically anywhere that allowed dogs. My parents had an electric fence at the time...one day it was broken and the man who installed it came to fix it. He was also a dog trainer, and when he bent down to pet Bailey, her hair stood up and she backed away. I will never forget him saying, "This dog needs socialization." I was dumbfounded because she had socialization; she was socialized constantly. But for some reason, it wasn't working. She had also attended a group obedience class. She did great in the class itself but soon learned to pick and choose which commands to obey and when. This is probably our fault for not working on obedience enough with her at home. Bailey also displayed issues with dominance from the very beginning. Our vet at the time also had a golden, and I asked him for advice. He went through a few exercises we could do to work on her dominance issues; he said he'd done them with his golden and they'd worked right away. I worked on them with Bailey, and needless to say, they didn't work.

Sometime in the middle of all this, Brian and I got married. Despite Bailey's problems, she had definitely become "my" dog as opposed to my family's dog. When Brian and I moved into our apartment, Bailey came with us. She became Brian's dog just as much as she was mine, and soon after, she began having issues with her elbow. We got opinions from a few different vets and decided that our best option would be weekly injections and additional meds when needed; we knew she would need surgery eventually. But despite all this, she was our dog and therefore our responsibility...plus, we loved her. She had quite the personality and constantly made us laugh. She was a great companion and we didn't mind taking care of her during her health issues...she was our baby. She was with us constantly; we had chosen an apartment on the ground level so that we could have easier access when taking her outside (plus we figured she'd enjoy lounging on the back patio). We found the nearest PetSmart and I took her on regular trips to pick up food, treats and toys. We also found some nice parks nearby and loved to take her for weekend adventures.

So most of the time, life with Bailey was great. But she still had her dominance issues and was wary of strangers despite our attempts to socialize her. Then, she began having issues with other dogs. There were a couple of fights with my parent's beagle and a particularly bad fight with Brian's sister's dog (which Brian and I both still have scars from trying to break up). So we decided to consult with a trainer/behaviorist and work on some of her issues. We had private training sessions during which we learned to look for signs that Bailey was uncomfortable in a situation and remove her from the situation before she got uncomfortable enough to snap. We learned how to use clicker training, but we never really got it. It was probably our fault, and maybe we didn't work on it hard enough, but we couldn't seem to ever get the timing right. Bailey would get so worked up so fast that we just never could make it work.

So, back to life as we knew it. My timeline might be a little screwy, but I think that soon after the previous trainer we looked into more extensive training. This time it was an expensive program that Brian's parents paid for half of and my parents paid for half of...it involved Bailey staying with the trainer and her dogs for three weeks. We thought it would be great for her to be around a pack of well-behaved dogs for this length of time; looking back, I didn't know near enough about the program to send her there and I really consider it a mistake. I don't think anything at all bad happened to her while she was there, but I just don't think it did her a lot of good. Maybe all these different behavior/training methods just confused her, and we really didn't do her any favors with our lack of consistency.

That is basically the highlights (or lowlights?) of Bailey's story and some of the warning signs we had. I know you are probably wondering why we even let her around the babies in the first place and I don't really have a good answer. I think we just thought that since she had never actually bitten a person she wouldn't start with our children. Or maybe we were just in denial about how deep her issues were. But either way, that's the story. Bailey is the reason I got involved with a rescue group and the reason I am passionately against backyard breeders: Maybe I am once again in denial, but I don't think I screwed Bailey up. I know I didn't raise her perfectly, but I did not raise her to be aggressive or fearful. She was not a typical golden from the start; she had issues that I believe she had since birth.

My volunteer work with the rescue group has mainly involved transports and fostering. This means that I picked up several dogs from less-than-desirable home environments or even shelters. And then some of the dogs came to live with us before going to their forever homes. I know some of these dogs were not raised in loving homes (let alone properly socialized), yet with a little love and patience they learned how to trust and be part of a family. At the picnic every year, hundreds of goldens run around off-leash, enjoying the attention from people and other dogs. Needless to say, we never brought Bailey to the picnic. She would've hated it and probably lashed out at another dog. I know that some of the dogs at the picnic came from horrific backgrounds. Those dogs could be "fixed." Why couldn't Bailey? I'll never know, but I am a big believer in everything happening for a reason. I may never know the reasons behind this, but hopefully hearing Bailey's story will help someone.