Last year my daughter brought home a Pitbull/Lab mix from the bus stop. He was without a collar, was not chipped, and no one responded to our Humane Society and Craigslist found listings. He's a great dog, so we kept him.
Honestly, I would have never picked out a pitbull mix, but he came to us and won over our hearts. What can I say? I even tried to deny he was a pitbull mix, until Cesar Millan had a dog who looked like his spitting image on an episode, that dog was also a rescued stray, and Cesar called him a Pitbull/Lab mix... so I gave up trying to say he might not be a pitbull/lab mix!
I am in a Bible Study Small group of 6 women. Every other Saturday we have a morning bible study and my older girls [13 & 16] do the child care for everyone's kids, which includes:
1 - 3 yr old [girl]
3 - 4 yr olds [twin boys and another girl]
1 - 6 yr old [boy, always plays w/my 10 yr old son]
1- 9 yr old [my daughter]
1 - 10 yr old [my son]
1- 11 yr old [a girl we will call Lizzy]
Usually all the kids go to one woman's house, and we all go to another woman's house for the actually study. It works better if the ladies and the kids are not in the same house, that way we don't have kids running to mommy through out our study.]
Last week, at the last minute, the woman who usually offers her house for the child care announced she was under "voluntary house arrest" as a charity fundraiser for Christians in Burma or something weird like that.
I offered my house for child care, and let everyone know "George", our dog, would be in the master bedroom, thus out of the way of the children, during the time the kids were at my house.
I don't have a kennel for him, he's been perfectly house trained since he came to us, so I never saw the point of getting a kennel and kennel training him. Although who knows, he could already be kennel trained? When we found him he was house trained, knew commands and tricks, and someone spent money on him getting him neutered.
We have had my kid's friends over to the house, and he is good with kids, but we always take the time to introduce him to anyone new who meets him. He goes to the dog park several times a week, and meets new people and plays with other dogs - never a problem.
But I knew letting him loose amongst a herd of small children was asking for problems. Hence, the bedroom confinement.
What I didn't think through was the 11 year old girl I am calling Lizzy. That child is something else. Two weeks ago I was doing child care for her and her younger siblings, and she would not listen to a thing I told her to do or not to do. She purposely defied me, time and time again. But this was par for the course with Lizzy. She talks back and defies her own parents. There are issues there within the family structure, she is daddy's little girl and he will not allow the girl's mother to discipline her, nor does he feel the need to discipline the child himself.
Lizzy's mom, btw, is the same woman who was responsible for our usually arrangement to be upset due to her "volunatary house arrest" drama.
So, Lizzy asked my 16 yr old if she could let George out of the bedroom. My 16 year old said "Absolutely NOT!" Lizzy stomped off in a huff.
My 16 year old was outside on the deck where she was with the 3 of the young children, all three of the four year olds.
My 13 year old was downstairs with the 3 yr old and the 6 year old, plus my 9 yr old and 10 yr old, who were each playing separately with the two younger kids.
From the deck, my 16 year old saw George in the living room with Lizzy, and George was growling at the girl and nipped at her.
He broke skin on her hand. Grrr. It was superficial, and I don't think her parents took her to the doctor. At least I asked them if they did and they said no.
The thing is, George had NEVER been introduced to Lizzy. She has never before been inside our house.
Also, Lizzy HAD to of been the one who let George out of the bedroom. No one saw who let George out, but everyone else was accounted for, and she had just asked to play with George, and had been told "NO".
Lizzy told me, and her parents that my 13-year old let George out, but Lizzy couldn't look me in the eye when she said my 13 year old had let George out... I believe Lizzy was lying.
My husband was at work, but I called him to head home as soon as we heard what happened. He and I got home at the same time and proceeded to question our kids separately... their stories all matched up, only Lizzy's story had our 13-year old letting George out of the bedroom.
Lizzy, on the other hand, has a track record of lying for the two years we've known the family. Lizzy's dad, however, said none of the adults were there so no one can say for sure what happened. Puh-leeeeeze!
Hence, no consequences for Lizzy.
My friend, the girls mother, asked me two days later, when we were working on our community garden plot, if we were going to put George down!
I said "No, this problem was not caused by George, the problem was the adults not taking the proper precautions to make sure he wouldn't be around the kids." I wanted to say, "And the problem was your daughter not being trained to follow orders," but I held my tongue.
By proper precautions, I meant that I had failed to anticipate that Lizzy would defy the instructions to not let George out of the bedroom. I did not say this explicitly, already too much tension in the air, but that's how I feel I failed in this situation. It was a last minute change of venue, so I really didn't think it through when I offered up my house - if I had it to do over again, I would not allow my girls to watch Lizzy because I know she does not listen and that puts my girls, who are doing the babysitting, in a liable position. And when they are doing the babysitting at my house, that puts me in a liable situation.
Now my husband and I have decided my older girls can no longer do child care for the group if Lizzy is in the group. We should have made this declaration prior to the George incident, but now it's very clear to use that we need to make this rule.
To make another example of how this girl doesn't listen, the neighborhood where we all live is pretty rough. Lizzy's yard is fenced in with a 6-foot fence. When I was watching her a couple of weeks ago, she left the yard, went out in the alley, and would not come back in when I realized she'd left the yard and I called her back in. She took her sweet time coming back to the yard, in fact waited until I went inside with the younger kids - I was watching from the window as best I could, but still, it was a frustrating situation.
I didn't tell her mom about when they got home, because serious, with this girl there is always something, and she never listens. It's par for the course.
But after the George incident, the seriousness of the situation crystallized in my mind and I realized, if she'd gotten picked up by a pedophile [and our low-income neighborhood has a lot of registered sex offenders] when she was ignoring me and refusing to come back inside the gate.... if, something had happened - I would have been held responsible.
It's sad I didn't see the big picture before the George incident, but I just didn't...
So now my friend, the girl's mother, thinks I am over reacting and I really ought to be thinking about putting George down rather than banning Lizzy from being babysat by myself of my girls.
I don't feel I am doing anything wrong, other than the mistake I made in the first place by offering up my home for child care. The rule my husband and I put in place regarding our girls watching Lizzy should have been in place prior to the whole George incident. But the George incident is what made us realize this, it's not really about George at all.
What do you, my fellow canine lovers, feel about this situation?
No doubt, the fact George is suspected to be part APBT, and he in fact looks like an oversized APBT - since he is the size of a lab, but with a pitbull face... my friends, not just Lizzy's mom, but other women in the group also, think George is dangerous.
I make sure he is socialized, hence taking him to the dog park 3-4x a week, and we always carefully introduce him to new visitors... we try to be responsible pet owners, but in this case, we made a mistake.
Our bible study group is hanging on the hing of this... if we persist in not allowing our older girls to do childcare for Lizzy, and our group normally has child care at Lizzy's house, then the group may cease to function.
I know group members will never allow my house to be the hostsite for the child care again, because of George. But if I did put George down, then they could have the child care at my home.
No one else's home works because they have small apartments or live too far away.
We are also planning to move cross country next year, from St. Paul to Atlanta, so putting George down would result in one more year of bible study versus all the years of George's life lost. That's just wrong. He's probably not even two years old now. And he's a great dog, we love him!
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