Second Chances
by C. Kutac

Bull was a red Rhodesian ridgeback, only three months old when he came to live with us. He was recovering from parvo and limped badly. His right front leg was swollen and had an ugly scar from the IV's he had endured. We never realized that he also had a hidden flaw that was both dismaying and dangerous.

One day my five year-old grandaughter Crystal came to visit. Bull lay stretched out on the couch, sound asleep when Crystal jumped on him. Bull woke up snapping and one tooth grazed Crystal's cheek and left a red mark. Although it didn't break the skin it was a sobering incident. We watched Bull closely for a few days and a pattern emerged. When wakened suddenly he was prepared to fight. If bumped or touched he growled, even as he awoke, and there was fear in his eyes.

At first I was puzzled. I had never encountered this problem with the breed before. We've had numerous ridgebacks on our 5 acres for better than twenty years. We've bred and raised a few select litters and we have always had one or two as housedogs. I felt I knew the breed as well as anyone and although they are large dogs, I never feared handling any of them. Even when injured or in pain, they always allowed me to work with them, helping deliver puppies, cleaning wounds, giving medicine, etc.

The first day I saw Bull he impressed me. Even though I was a stranger, when he got out of the car he raced over and pressed his head against my knee and leaned there. It was as if he were home and he knew it.

He had earned his name. Like the proverbial bull in the china shop he lived life full-tilt. I think he survived parvo through sheer will power. I learned that after 10 days in an animal hospital, Bull was barely able to walk when he went home. The breeder said there had been talk of putting him down, but Bull had such a great personality, they decided to give him a chance to pull through. That was when I got the phone call asking if I would take Bull. I agreed.

Bull had a great personality. A typical ridgeback, he loved splashing in the water, then rolling in the grass. He chased lizards and even low flying birds. It seemed as if he was trying to make up for time lost when sick. Once a skunk wandered into our yard and Bull took a spray, directly in his face and eyes. Taken aback, Bull shook his head and ran in huge circles, rubbing on bushes, vines and grass. Then he stopped, assessed the situation and charged the skunk again. The skunk fled, probably amazed it had done its worst and Bull still came back for a second try.

Bull was turning into a good example of the breed and was a glutton for affection. He plodded around the yard, following us from place to place as we fed the other animals and did chores. In the evenings he loved to lay with his head on my lap as I watched TV. If I was busy in the kitchen he would find another family member upon whom to rest his head.

I had no doubts about his temperament after a drunken man, at least 6 feet tall and about 200 pounds, tried to enter our gate. Bull put himself directly in front of the man and the more the man yelled, the louder Bull barked. When the man tried to unlatch the gate, Bull lunged at the man but never actually bit. This is a trait common with every ridgeback we ever owned -- they put on a big show without actually using their teeth. Bull behaved exactly as expected.

But when he snapped at my granddaughter's face it was extremely out of character for him or the breed. We were puzzled.

The easiest thing would have been to wash our hands of the whole matter and get rid of the menace, no matter how much we loved him. After all, a dog that snarled and bit if you accidentally woke him was, indeed, a menace. And the bigger the dog, the bigger the menace. This behavior might be "cute" in a tiny Yorkie protecting its pillow, but a full grown male Rhodesian ridgeback normally tips the scales at over 100 pounds. In a few months, this could erupt into a full-blown crisis.

It wasn't a decision to be made on the spur of the moment. My course of action was to demand that everyone keep away from Bull while he slept. Then I pondered what to do. With tears in my eyes I watched him play in the yard, not wanting to have the vet kill this dog that fought so hard to live.

His behavior was a puzzle---good most of the time, bad only when he was awakened. Perhaps the problem stemmed from all those days spent hospitalized, with needles being poked into his already swollen and tender legs. If he learned to fear being wakened, maybe he could unlearn it. Maybe if I tried hard enough I could retrain that fear reaction.

As luck would have it I was cooking a beef roast the day that thought occurred to me. The smell was tantalizing. If it smelled that good to me, just imagine how it would smell to Bull. I impatiently waited for him to fall asleep.

I placed a morsel of roast an inch or so in front of his nose and then gently prodded his back with my finger. He tensed as he awoke, but then he smelled the meat. As he gulped it down I praised, "Good boy," and patted his head. I repeated this procedure several times a day, making sure I used warm, aromatic meat. And each time I praised and patted him.

After awhile, as he became more relaxed upon waking, I switched to hugging him as he ate the bite of meat. When a month had passed we had repeated this scenario at least one hundred times. Then came the next step: as Bull slept, I would lean on his chest or shoulder and stick the meat in his mouth at the same instant. I still praised him each time. After about a month of this, I gradually stopped waking him up altogether.

My method worked. For his entire eleven years, Bull slept on the bed with me and never growled or snapped once. Not even with all my tossing and turning, or the few times I accidentally kicked him as I slept. However there were a few drawbacks to his conditioning -- for the rest of his life, Bull woke up with the question, "Where's the beef?" He developed into a real chow hound and it was a constant struggle to keep his weight down. Better plump than dead.

That's why I implore dog owners not to rush to destroy a problem dog. That's a last resort if all else fails. Putting a dog down is not a hasty decision to make when emotions are in turmoil.