Now We Did It!!

As part of little Deiab's socialization, Katie and I decided to take him to the beach today. Our timing may have been a bit off though, since he started the day early with a visit to the vet for his 2nd round of shots. He wasn't terribly excited to be in the car for such a long period of time after going to the vet. Wondering if maybe the long trip (about 2 hours) reminded him of what happened just a week ago....he left everything he knew to go to a different place.

(Deiab shaking during the car ride and refusing to go in his crate)

We kept going however, totally excited to get him there for his first beach experience. Once we were there, we took him to lunch with us and let him eat at an outdoor cafe where he could watch little birds eating at a bird feeder, and get lots of treats from our waitress (what puppy wouldn't love that??)

Then we took him to a doggie store where he got to try on a new harness-collar and got tons of loves (even man-handled a bit by the owner) and treats. He was a bit shell-shocked but still doing okay. We were starting to slowly see the shy turtle that is our dog, starting to get more and more confidence about the world around him.

Finally it was time for his trip down to the beach. We were super excited to let him feel sand, see the waves, chase seagulls. Just take it all in.

He got to see joggers and walkers.....(fast moving people usually scare him)
He got to see, tons of seagulls. His moms' even let him play in the water, something he's been dying to do since we brought him home.
The day was going well when the worst case scenario happened. Deiab was started to get tired so we called it a day and headed back toward the car. I had been deliberately avoiding all off-leash dogs since I didn't know how he would react and since he hasn't had all his shots yet. Sadly, we couldn't avoid them all.

An off-leash dog came barreling at him from far away. I thought he wanted to play, so I held my ground and let Deiab figure it out on his own. Unfortunately that was far from what the dog actually wanted apparently...he ATTACKED!! This dog slammed right into Deiab, rolled him over and started attacking him, biting at his hind quarter. Deiab was screaming and crying, and Katie was pulling me back from intervening and pulling the dog away because she didn't want the dog to start ripping into me. So I just started screaming for the owners to get their dog off him!!! It felt like forever before the owners finally got there to pull their dog away (they had been far away, as was the dog who charged him).

Poor Deiab was shaking and crying and cowering under Katie, while the owners were apologizing and trying to give us their contact information. We barely said 2 words to them or looked at them, we were so focused on our poor little man. But we were also trying to not to coddle him too much as they you should let your dog figure stuff out a bit on his own. He didn't appear to be bleeding at the time, but was tender on one side, so we thought maybe he was just shaken and felt lucky that the dog didn't bite him. So we took the owner's number, and left that horrid place to drive our baby home. We had to clean him before we could leave though cuz the poor little guy pooped himself, he was so terrified! He just whimpered and cowered in the back seat the whole way home. We felt like horrible puppy owners, but cursed the dog's owners who attacked him.

By the time we were getting close to home, Katie pulled him into her lap cuz we just wanted to be near her. While he was there, she realized that he was bleeding. He HAD actually been bitten by that horrible dog!!! We called our vet since were were close enough to home now, and asked if they thought we should bring him in. They said yes, so we raced our little man back to the place where his traumatizing day had started. At the vet, they checked him out, shaved the spot that was bleeding and gave us anti-inflammatories and pain meds for him. He had one deep puncture wound and several scratches. It didn't help that since we had no idea of the dog had all his shots, Deiab had to get a rabies shot on the sore side of his leg. He yelped and cried and perhaps no longer liked going to the vet!

(Deiab's war wounds)

(poor baby)

Lucky for him though, his mommies felt so bad that he got babied the rest of the night. He got to cuddle on the couch and even gas us kisses (so all hope was not lost with him liking people at least! Dogs may be a different story!)

(I love puppy kisses)

(snuggling on his favorite pillow....mum)

Moral of the story is that despite trying to do everything right, we still messed up and we learned that we are truly parents now! We were so worried for our little man and realize that even though he may have dog issues now, we'll do our best to do what's right for him and work with him on his issues, but he's still our little man and we love him.