Dog bites

My mother-in-law’s dog is a vicious little bastard. It’s a poodle-chihuahua mix, with all the bad characteristics of a chihuahua and not one good aspect of a poodle.

It is aggressive and it drops fur in clumps. Few poodles are aggressive. Poodles have hair, not fur, and they do not shed. And while most chihuahuas cannot break skin, Mrs. R’s can. And does.

Mrs. R got the vicious little bastard (VLB) from a woman she did not know, in the parking lot at a shopping center. The woman said her husband was ill, she could not properly care for him and for the dog, and would Mrs. R please take the dog and give it a good home?

Mrs. R took the dog home. She named it Rascal, for what she at first considered its feisty personality. It is a generational name. People from her generation sometimes referred to spirited dogs and children as “a little rascal.” A rascal had to be small; no one referred to a dog or child of size as a rascal. The term carried the idea of liveliness, of one who was often in trouble, but not of the serious kind. Rascal dogs and kids got away with things because they were so cute.

There is nothing Spankyish or Alfalfaish about the vicious little bastard Mrs. R brought home. If the VLB was near The Little Rascals, Petey would take its head off.

A week ago, Priscilla and I were at Mrs. R’s house. I had let our two big poodles into the back yard. When returning to the den, I saw the VLB lying in the chair I had vacated. I told the VLB to get up. It snarled. I said, “You need to get up.” It snarled.

When I reached to move the dog, it bit me. Three times. Hard, harder and put two big holes in my left hand. I picked it up and put it outside. I then washed the bites – two small scrapes, two small holes and two quarter-inch-wide punctures – with soap and hot water. Mrs. R had only small circle first aid adhesive things. Priscilla put one on each of the larger holes.

That afternoon, I drove home. The bites were bleeding, so I took off the circle things and put on a large piece of gauze and three long adhesive strips.

Mrs. R is going into an assisted living home in a week. She has Alzheimer’s and cannot live alone.

The vicious little bastard … It’s going somewhere else.
No, I’m not going to kill it. Priscilla and I will find a rescue place, maybe one specifically for vicious little bastard dogs.