NEVER...EVER...GIVE UP HOPE : My Dog Ate Dad's Teeth!

Thursday, April 3, 2014

My Dog Ate Dad's Teeth!

Remember Babe in B is for Babe? When we brought her home she was about 8 years old. We were able to learn a few things about her background. She was a trained guard dog and only understood commands in German. We had no idea what the commands were but certainly experienced her ability to protect us if she felt we were threatened.

We lived at the end of a road where teenagers liked to party late at night. This disturbed Babe greatly and when she saw them coming she would run up behind them and smash the full weight of her body behind their knees. They would totally freak out and didn't know what knocked them off balance but they stopped coming around. Babe would nonchalantly walk away as if she was not guilty.

Teeth? What teeth?

My father-in-law, her former owner, kept his false teeth in a glass on his bedside table. Before going to sleep one night, he had eaten a piece of lemon meringue pie and left the crust on his plate. When he woke up in the morning, Babe had licked the pie plate clean and she must have realized that there were some pie scraps on the teeth in the glass of water. She ate the teeth as well. Yup....ate the teeth!

Even though Babe never hurt anyone, she definitely sent a message that her sole purpose was to protect her owners. Some of the neighbors felt threatened by her and a woman complained to the by-law officer that Babe had bitten her while my husband was walking Babe on a leash. All she did was smell the woman, didn't even bark. We knew this was a lie and told the officer that when he arrived at our home with bad news.

Babe's demise was to be put to sleep

"I am afraid you will have to put her to sleep. She is obviously a threat to the neighbors and we have no tolerance of dogs who bite people."

"I want you to have the complainant show me the bite. She is lying." my husband demanded.

A few days later, the officer came back and said that we were right. Babe had not touched her but the woman was afraid to go for walks and therefore, he would have to uphold his original decision to have Babe put down. We had 30 days.

We were all heartbroken and knew she was NO threat and never had bitten anyone. My daughter wrote a heartfelt letter to the by-law officer telling him that she was raised to be honest and did not understand how he could make a decision to kill a dog that had harmed no one and was the victim of a vindictive lie. The letter went unanswered.

Two can play this game!

While shopping one afternoon, I got an idea and I began to laugh out loud in the drug store. I made my purchase and drove home so excited I couldn't wait to tell my family. I bought three boxes of black hair dye and we dyed Babe's hair totally black.

I waited about two months and then applied for a new dog license for our new black doberman, named Blade.

Who had the last laugh now?

To her dying day, she never harmed anyone but she sure let it be known she was in control of who came onto our property.

What would you have done?