Recovered Bean

I thought I'd give an update on Delaney's status as a lot of people have been asking after her recently. The picture attached really says it all about her mental state. Completely unaffected and the whole thing is forgotten. Physically, she has a little raised scar under her eye and a little indented scar above same eye, for polarity. The puncture wound on her left cheek is indented and now everyone thinks it's a dimple. Not too bad for a dog bite. I suppose some of these will leave behind remnants but I am slathering them with Vitamin E so maybe it will be hardly noticeable by the time she's a teenager and these things start to matter. I am trying to limit the things she can hate me for from the get-go, but obviously, I'm not off to a great start.

And as far as I go, I still catch a potted plant's tendrils wave in the breeze or a shadow move with the shifting light and for a split second I think "Gordon". It's a fragment of a forget. I know he's gone, but his presence was so strong and so constant, that it's a real adjustment to sweep the crumbs off the floor and not wait for him to come hoover them up. Justin and I both have noted that while we miss him, Delaney's growing personality has begun to fill in the gaps right down to the fact that she palm-slaps her way over to us if we have a plate of food. She has even begun to look up expectantly. Maybe we'll work on the crumbs soon...

Shellshocked

I don't want to only write when there is trouble, but I am reliving the nightmare that was last weekend over and over in my head and hoping that writing about it will exorcise it from my memory. I will start out by saying that Delaney is fine.

On Thursday evening Gordon attacked Delaney. I have to say attacked because there is really no other word for it. I was sitting in the living room in a chair with my daughter on the ground at my feet. My dad was sitting across the room with Gordon next to him and we were chitty-chatting, having a good time, enjoying his visit which was just beginning. No food, no toys, no climbing or pulling on tails. Out of nowhere (or so I thought at the time) Gordon lunges across the room, low to the ground with a snarl in his throat and goes at Delaney. It was so fast and so unexpected and the whole memory seems stuck in slow motion as I leapt to my feet to get him off of her. I pulled him off and saw her on the ground screaming. At first I thought (hoped) that he had just knocked her down. But when I picked her up, blood was dripping down her face and clothes. Her right eye had taken most of the bite and it was hard to see how bad it was. Dad had thrown the dog in the backyard and somehow we made it into the car, Dad holding Delaney while strangely she slept soundly on his chest the whole way.

I felt myself tightening up into a ball on the drive. Her bloody little face was facing me while she slept and I began to alternately cry and hyperventilate on the drive to the ER. Justin had called moments after the attack had happened to tell us he was on his way home. I must have shouted something into the phone like "Gordon attack, ER, Delaney, blood!" before I got out the door. He was there waiting for us at the ER and dad got out with Delaney while I went to park the car. I heard Justin ask "Is it bad?" and then say "Oh my god." when he saw her face. Driving through the stupid, insignificant parking lot, trying to find a wretched, empty parking space I screamed and screamed at the top of my lungs.

Inside we are seen fairly quickly for an ER and Delaney's wounds are assessed by a wonderful NP who tells us that there is a lot of blood, which is good because the wounds flush out the dog germs that way. She has a puncture wound on her left cheek where a tooth went straight through to the inside. The thought of this wound in particular makes me sick as I think of me checking Gordon's teeth periodically for tarter and cavities. The rest of the bite is over her eye, the brow and cheekbone taking most of the hit and saving her little coffee bean peeper from harm. The wounds are bloody but not deep. They are irrigated with saline, a process which makes her scream and shake while I die at her feet. I sing and sing to her the favorite songs. Itsy Bitsy Spider, Patty-cake, nonsense songs that only she and I know. Then another round of screaming while they put sticky tape dressings over each cut. After 5 hours with the ER crew, we are finally sent home with antibiotics, pain medication, ice packs, and an exhausted, battered, baby girl. She sleeps soundly through the night and we all go in many times to look at her, check her breathing, feel her skin.

We stay up all night, my dad and Justin and me. We discuss the process of the whole attack over and over. We drink bottles of wine and try to make sense of it. I see it and describe it again and again, looking for a clue. How could this dog, my dog, who has sat with the child for hours and hours in the past do this? And then the hard questions start, but inside I know the answers are not all that difficult. He is out back as we discuss all this and when I look at him I see that he has no idea he has done anything wrong. I hate him and love him for his stupidity all at once and my tears flow again. We discuss our options again the next day with each other, with my dad, with the vet. Delaney wakes up in a great mood, but looks like she went ten rounds with the champ. I hold her while I look out the window at Gordon and think about what could have happened. He could have killed her. He could have snapped her neck, bitten her jugular, punctured her skull. This girl it took me so long to get. From a dog it took me so long to train. My whole body shakes when these thoughts pass through. Like I can shake them off of me like cobwebs. But I can't. And they sit there. Just waiting to come out and stab me again.

I can't have him here anymore and I can't give him away for fear he would bite someone else's child. There are no-kill shelters, but I can't imagine my bouncing, springing dog locked up in a kennel 23 hours a day. We decide to have him put down, like I knew we would in the end and I am aghast at the fresh wave of sorrow this decision brings. I see him out there wagging his tail and waiting for someone to come play fetch and I know that he is just a dog and that I have humanized him. Delaney points to him and laughs like she always did and I hope she will never remember this dreadful thing.

As I write this, I see myself trying to make excuses for my feelings and I guess I am a victim too. I am eternally grateful my girl is alive and shining. But my heart is broken in so many ways, in so many pieces because I feel like I failed my daughter and I failed my dog. With research, we find that dog problems can increase with infants who are learning to crawl. Mobility seems to be a turning point for a once peaceful coexistence in some dogs. And again, I realize I love a dog. A creature whose natural instincts are still a mystery to me even though I've invited him into my home, fed him, washed, him, loved him. There were warning signs, I just didn't know what they were when he was exhibiting them.

So I scrunched his head one more time and gave him a last high five. This dog that bit my daughter. I only want to remember the sweet Gordon and not the snarling dog who felt compelled to attack her for sitting there. The Gordon who peeled out of the house when you opened a beer, self-trained to know that this usually meant "I'm going outside". The Gordon who would fetch and fetch and fetch until your arm was sore from throwing. And the Gordon who sat patiently until you put his food bowl down, just like I 'd trained him. Justin took him to the vet on Friday and had his own Gethsemane with him that I'll never know about. And he slept his way out of our lives. I am shellshocked yet and conflicted with guilt, emotions, sorrow. He is gone. And I'll be damned if I don't miss him. But it's time to start healing.

Snooze Button

I have a lot of time on my hands to observe Delaney's behavior and at this age, while extraordinarily cute, she doesn't seem all that complicated physiologically.  You put in the food, it comes out fairly regularly.  You make a funny face and she gives you a wonderful little smile  But for the life of me I can't figure out why, if she's tired, I have to teach her how to sleep.  

Sleep.  It's what babies are famous for.  There's the old phrase "sleeping like a baby".  Did the author of that little nugget have to wrestle with themselves about when to put the baby down for a nap?  Do you nurse the baby to sleep or put them down drowsy so they can fall asleep on their own?  Do you go pick them up when they wake in the night or wait and let them get themselves back to sleep?  And if the author went the cry-it-out method, did they pace the floor chewing their fingernails, resting one hand on the doorknob, tears streaming down there own cheeks, wondering if they are ruining their child forever by letting her cry.  Or perhaps they tried the pick the baby up when it cries method, where you are up all night because she is only napping for 45 minutes at a time and in 4 hour waves at night and you are practically dead on your feet, but don't want to break the bond of trust you are supposed to be establishing with the baby when she cries.

I look forward to teaching her to read, swim, and eat olives.  I know she'll need help with a two wheeled bicycle and walking on her feet.  I had no idea sleep was going to be the first lesson we'd conquer together, nor that it would be so absolutely confounding to elucidate.  "You kind of put your head down.  When you are frantically rubbing your eyes and beginning to yawn is always a good time.  You close your eyes usually and perhaps shift your position a little and then you sort of go to sleep."

Either she's a poor study or I'm a crap teacher.  I'm betting on the latter.