It's like a relationship that has gone bad. No, it's not like that. It is that. And I feel guilty. And because the relationship isn't always bad, I'm having a hard time ending it.

Am I talking about G? No, actually, I'm talking about Luna. Yes, I'm talking about my relationship with my dog. With my recently adopted dog. I adopted her as a leap of faith. I needed a leap of faith. I need to do something without having a Big Plan. Without knowing where life would lead. Just trusting that it would all be okay. I needed to prove that life is good. That sometimes you don't have to plan all possible contingencies before you act. That being an alcoholic drug addict is irresponsible. But adopting a dog isn't. It is a perfectly responsible thing to do and I can do it without worrying about all consequences.

So much for that.

She is a little terror. Don't get me wrong -- she is horribly cute. She has this adorable little wavy stripe on her face. It's off center and makes me laugh when I look at her. She sits in the back yard by the chainlink fence and watches for my car. She sits there with her paw (usually left) held up in a plaintive pose and watches me pull in the driveway. She bounces up and down with excitement as I get out of my car. I say hello to her and she excitedly flies across the yard, through the open sliding glass door and zooms to the front door to say hello to me. It is wonderful. I feel loved. It makes me smile.

So what is wrong? She is aggressive. I keep forgiving her. Why? Because of the cuteness described above. I find excuses for her behavior. It is a classic abusive relationship. She has been with us for 9, maybe 10 weeks. What has happened in that time? Well she habitually bullies Shiva. If I am petting Shiva she pushes him out of the way. If he has a toy she steals it from him. But she doesn't even play with it! Shiva's favorite thing (aside from food) is empty cardboard tubes (toilet paper or paper towel roll tubes). He loves to chew on them and leave soggy cardboard chunks around this house. Yes, it's gross but a fairly minor vice all things considered. Even if I give them EACH THEIR OWN, Luna will take hers outside and drop it and then go steal Shiva's in a violent way. Then she takes his outside and drops it. She takes things from him even though she doesn't really want them herself. She just doesn't want him to have them. And she body slams him all the time. Shiva is almost 10. He has arthritis. His knees hurt. And she is body slamming him. I think it's causing physical damage. I had hoped that getting another dog would liven him up. Luna has made him into a sad old man. But they are dogs. Dogs will work it out. She just plays rough. I found ways to not protect Shiva. I thought that I shouldn't be so blatant in my favorism of the first born. I mean, I can now forgive my parents for favoring their first-born because I can understand the instinct. But I fought it. I wasn't being fair to Luna by holding her interactions with Shiva against her. I chose to look the other way.

Then she growled at Michael when he came into the kitchen. Okay, she was new to the house. Then she snapped at Shiva when he was playing with a toy. Okay, posssessive aggression is something we have to work on. She snapped at Gary when he tried to take away a piece of plastic that she could have choked on. Then later that night when she was on the floor next to a toy and Gary walked past and kicked the toy out of his way Luna growled at him. But again she was relatively new to the house. All she needs is love and affection. We can work with her. Poor thing -- she was abused. It's obvious. Abused and abandoned. We emailed the people from whom we rescued her and they expressed surprise. They said they had never witnessed anything like that. Must be the stress of the change. We had her in obedience classes. We'd work with her.

Then one night in obedience classes G is the one working with her. The instructor was leading them in a dominance exercise. You pin the dog down and hold her in place until she doesn't resist. She has to learn trust. She has to learn her place. The dog next to G was perhaps too close. The owner of that dog was an idiot. G was holding Luna in a submissive position and the other dog approached to sniff Luna. Luna felt vulnerable. She felt threatened. It seemed that G was holding her down with her vulnerable parts exposed so that the other dog could get her. She freaked out and lunged toward the other dog. G was in the way. Luna got him in the face. Narrowly missing his eye. I didn't see that she had actually made contact. After the class he pulled back his hair and showed me - a tooth puncture about an inch and a half from his eye. He could have lost his eye. I was freaked out. But we decided she was trying to defend herself. It wasn't her fault. It was the other dog owner's fault. And Luna was going for the other dog, not G. G just got in the way.

Then she behaved really sweetly. She did so well in obedience classes. It was amazing how well she listened. She held her sit-stay while I threw treats all around her. Let's see Shiva try that! I knew we still had work to do but things were working out. She was really improving. Perhaps she was starting to trust us. Perhaps we could start to trust her. She still got that far away look in her eyes when we pet her. She still seemed tense when we pet her. But she had been abused. It would take some time.

On Sunday I was with a friend at the artist walk and he had Luna on the leash while I held Shiva. She growled at every on-leash dog that passed us. It was a little disturbing. But she's young, right? She just has to be taught.

Then on Thursday housemate Michael wanted to go into the kitchen. Luna was sprawled across the doorway. He stepped over her. She jumped up and growled and went for his calf. She didn't close her teeth around his calf. She didn't break skin. But you know, when a dog is in the doorway it is claiming ownership of the space. By accommodating her and stepping over her, Michael was signaling submission. And she might have seen the leg over her as threatening. So we could justify it.

Later his girlfriend stopped by with her dog, Sunny. Sunny is an elderly terrier who is here often. Michael held Luna's collar so that she wouldn't escape out the front door. Sunny went to say hello to Luna and according to Michael and his girlfriend, it was a good thing Michael was holding her collar because she tried to attack Sunny. But if Michael was holding Luna and she felt that she was being restricted while Sunny was free, she might have felt the need to defend herself. So, we didn't like the behavior but could see why it happened.

Then on Saturday afternoon Georgia's boyfriend, P, was visiting. He has been here before. He has scratched Luna on the head. He has played with her. She was in the hallway asleep and P walked past her and nudged her with his foot. She jumped up and growled and barked menacingly. Okay but he did wake her up and startle her.

Then Saturday night Luna was asleep on a doggie bed. I said her name to wake her up as I approached. She woke and saw me and rolled on her side to be petted. I knelt down next to her and was rubbing her belly and talking to her. I was going to bend down to kiss her on the head when she growled and snapped at my face. I'm glad I moved faster. That was it. There was no way to excuse that. There was no "yeah but" that we could come up with. She was just unreasonably aggressive. No provocation. No justification. No more forgiveness. It's just the way she is. And it sucks.

So we have to get rid of her. We can't have an aggressive dog. We can't have a dog we can't trust. We can't have a dog that is so unpredictable. We can't have the liability. We can't take the stress. I guess faced with the choice of stress v guilt, I'm opting for guilt.

I emailed the rescue guy from whom I got Luna and told her that we could not keep her. I asked if the SD Beagle rescue wanted her back. He wrote back this nasty message. Well, maybe not nasty, but it made me feel worse. He said that he was no longer in the rescue group. He said that Luna is my responsiblity because I adopted her and as her pet owner I had to find her a new home and make sure that I did a home check and interviews and made sure that it was a better fit than it was with us. He said that we couldn't take her to a shelter because HE had rescued her from a shelter "and spent so much time" making the placement. He said, "Don't focus on her aggressive side because then you'll never get her adopted." WHAT! OH MY GOD! Was that a confession? Did he know?? Did he willfully withhold that crucial piece of information? I'm pretty ticked off. I feel like he set me up. He set Luna up. I do think that in the proper home with the right person Luna could probably succeed and do well. The right person could work with her and train her. Luna is sweet enough of the time to indicate to me that she has potential. But we are not the right home. We simply can't do what needs to be done. And we would not have adopted her had we known that this was how she is. We knew what kind of time we had. And we were told that she was housebroken (uh, kind of) and super sweet (most of the time). I thought perhaps it was my fault that she was not being as sweet as she had been while in rescue. Now I question what she had been like in rescue!

So what to do? There are a couple of leads of people who might want her. I should know within a week. I've also left a message with the dog trainer to see if she knows of any potential homes. In the meantime I have to fight the urge to bond with her and to be taken with her. I must remain conscious of how I felt last night when she snapped at me while I was petting her. I have to remember the betrayal I felt. After this week if none of the possible homes want her I have to take her to DAWG. Can you believe it? It's a no-kill shelter and the people there are really good with the animals. They work on finding the right homes. They won't place her in an inappropriate home. They wouldn't have given her to us. It breaks my heart to take her there. I feel so guilty.

And it is bringing up so much other stuff. I mean I needed this to work. I needed to be able to JUMP and land okay. It was a huge leap of faith to adopt her. A big step. Growth. Spiritual growth. Healing. And now what? Now it's all wrong. I was wrong to have faith. I was wrong to jump. I was wrong to trust.

Jimmy told me once that the reason why we didn't have kids was because he thought I'd be a bad mother. And here I thought it was because we didn't have sex. Anyway - that stuck with me. Yes, he said it when we were both saying mean things to each other and when things had already hit the fan. But it stuck because it spoke to a fear that I had deep inside of me. Maybe I would be a bad mother. But I have been a good mother to Shiva. Yes and no. Jimmy & I trained Shiva together. Maybe Shiva is a great dog (although far from perfect) because of Jimmy, not because of me. Maybe I am not a good mother. And I've always wanted to adopt as well as have a biological kid. Well this is making me question all of that. I guess I am a bad mother because I couldn't raise Luna. I guess I can't adopt a kid because if I can't handle the baggage that comes with a freakin' dog how can I ever hope to handle the baggage that comes with an adopted child???? And would I always love my biological kid more than the adopted? I mean I put Shiva before Luna. Was that really fair?

This whole experience has me fairly rattled. It has shaken my foundation in a way that even to me seems absurd. And it hurts. I'm not sure how I move on from this. Where do I go next? I guess for now I have no choice but to put it behind me. To bury it so that it manifests itself in more neurotic self-destructive behavior at a later date. I can't really deal with it now -- I have to prepare the course I'm teaching in the spring. I have to find a place to live since our landlord is kicking us out to jack up the rent to new people. I have to find another dog-friendly rental that is affordable in this hellishly expensive hamlet. I have to catch up on work projects. I have to be super woman. I don't have time to deal with my issues. And even if I did have time, I'm not sure I'd know how to start.