drwex | Somewhere inside me is a tiny firey ball of hate

We had to give Carly back. I haven't said a lot about it, but Carly is the dog we adopted about a month ago.

I've never had a dog before. Sort of wanted one when I was a kid but my mother adamantly refused all pets. Watching how my kids have acted around this dog has been an education in understanding her point of view.

Thing 1 has been super-awesome. He has totally leveled up in his responsibility and maturity. He deals, he's volunteered; he has helped with training her. And, like me, he can't be present when Pygment takes Carly back this morning. Like me, he cried some when we made the decision and afterward. Like me, I can see he's hurting inside but is getting by in the ways he knows how. Thing 2 not so much. He's balked at doing dog chores (like all other chores) and he's been constantly problematic about picking his stuff up, not interfering with training, etc. Nine is a lot different from twelve, what can I say.

I could write paragraphs about how great a dog Carly is. She's smart and affectionate and copes remarkably well with all sorts of things. I actually like walking her and she's gotten me off my arse and moving more than I usually do. She's convinced she's still a lap-dog despite her size and she has the softest fur around her neck and behind her ears. But I suppose you want to know why we're giving her up.

She's still not crate-trained. Boy does she hate that thing. She copes better when she's been at doggy daycare (thank you to tamidon for that pointer) and has been more tired out. She's still a puppy and likes to grab food you've left unattended, and to chew on stuffed animals, her leash, your hands, and other inappropriate things. I almost beheaded her when she tore up one of my books. But no, it's not any of that.

Despite coping amazingly well - even with kids - at a house party over Baitcon weekend she started showing signs of aggression last week. The aggression was unpredictable - some of it seems to be against people who act like prey. Somewhere inside, Carly is still a hunting dog. But sometimes it's just random. Frighteningly, it seems to be directed at children most often. She's gotten aggressive with other dogs, particularly ones that bark at her, but last weekend she went after a child who was visiting Thing 2 for a playdate. Pygment intervened and lost a bit of skin as a result.

On Monday, Pygment took Carly to an obedience class and talked to the trainer, who had some bad news for us (since confirmed by two other independent trainers). Carly is a rescue. We don't know what her history is, or how she's been treated in the past. Most troubling is that her aggression seems so random. We can't tell what the trigger is - a smell, a sound, who knows. That kind of intermittent aggression is the hardest kind to extinguish. If we were even going to try it would require intensive in-home work with a trainer and there was no guarantee of success. Things could be seemingly fine for a year and then one day she would hit some unknown trigger and berserk again. And if she did that and injured a child she might end up having to be put down.

That's the deal-breaker. We got her as a rescue to keep her from being killed in another shelter far away. We didn't get her just for our own joy, to put her at risk again. Carly is a great dog, but she isn't a great dog for us. She needs to be with a family that has no kids. So this morning Pygment took her back to the place where we got her, and we hope they can find her new people who will love her as much as we did, and keep her safe the way we can't.

Somewhere inside me is a tiny firey ball of hate for whoever did something bad to Carly so we could not keep her. Dammit.