a tale of two hands - or none.

Lessee… to make this story complete, I must start back with a few facts y’all may or may not know. Three years ago or so, my left wrist was surgically fused due to “Keinbock’s disease” sort of the human equivalent to navicular disease. To save some use of my hand, they had to take away the use of my wrist. To be quite honest – not a day goes by still that this loss doesn’t bother me some way or another… pain, irritation, grief, sometimes even panic attacks when I feel the metal bar under my skin. In other words, my left arm/hand is a pain in the a**!

And then there’s Stuart… our 5 year old Anatolian Shepherd dog. (the one on the right in this photo - with the dark ears) We’ve had him about a year and a half. We wanted another Anatolian to take over for our wonderful “Akin” – who is retired because he’s nearly 16 years old now. Puppies from good breeders are hard to find, but when we heard about Stuart, we thought he might be a good match for our situation. Stuart was “re-homed” to us from the woman who raised him from a puppy. She kept him in about half of a small house on less than ¼ acre – with a pool in the backyard, so that he didn’t even have a whole yard. Stuart is tall, even for an Anatolian (they’re considered one of the “giant breeds”). He spent his days in 2 rooms in the house, barking until the neighbors complained. Then he spent his days wearing a shock-type bark collar…. Which didn’t stop him from barking, but it DID shock him all day every day.) His owner had him for “protection” – she was afraid of everything all the time, and that’s how she raised him – an anxious Anatolian.

She did love him, but didn’t do him any favors in the way she raised him. He hadn’t left his little home in 2.5 years, since he was neutered at 5 months. He was painfully thin and not at all interested in eating. He had chronic yeast problems in his ears. I believe she finally started to look for a new home for him when he started complaining about having the shock collar put on. She told us “I’ve never told him no!” But we're pretty sure that HE told HER *N*O*!!

She had Michael put his collar on before we left. We drove all night to Sacramento to get him and all day back home, with an anxious humongous strange dog in the back of the Subaru station wagon. He’d grumble and kinda snarl each time we’d put him back in the car, but calm right down as soon as the door was closed. Well, calm down sort of, he never laid down for the whole trip from Sacramento to Norco (6+hours?) He sat once or twice, but never for more than a few seconds. He spent a lot of time with his head up against the doggie-divider, leaning it on my hand.

He came a long way with us – enjoyed his job and our 2+ acres… loved the horses and us, our last sheep, our other dogs… he loved to run and play! He even took care of my baby “granddaughter” – Jen’s daughter, Allexxa. When she had Lexxie “parked” (out of dogs reach) in her car seat in the barn aisle, Stuart came and got Jen if the baby made noise and Jen didn’t notice!

We learned that Stuart definitely had issues about his collar, confinement, and discipline, but he came to learn that life has rules, sometimes you don’t get to make all the rules yourself, and that being anxious all the time was a waste of energy.

We’d learned early on that trying to lead Stuart by his collar was asking for trouble, it would send him into a panic, and his very large mouth full of very large teeth was right next to your arm/body if you had your hand on his collar. We had done quite a lot of desensitizing with him to get him used to pressure on his neck… he had come quite a long way – but of course that was under ideal circumstances. A slight tug on a rope could send him snapping on the rope, and making scary faces at whoever was holding the other end.

Over the months he’d come to accept and, I think, enjoy many silly things… I wouldn’t ever try a traditional “alpha roll” with an LGD, even if the dog was small enough for me to physically accomplish that feat… but Stuart had relaxed enough that he’d rolled on his back for me several times. I could put my hand in his mouth, tug on his face and ears, even open his mouth and put my face in like a lion tamer!

He and I came up with a game that I played with him to enforce the fact that I made the rules (starting and stopping the game) and to help him learn bite inhibition and a soft mouth. I called it the shoe game…. I’d push on his foot and he’d leap into a play bow, putting his mouth around my shoe, and we’d play “wrestle” that way for quite a while. If my shoe came off, Stuart wouldn’t even touch my foot with his mouth, and he learned quickly that the game stopped if his mouth touched my leg or ankle. He LOVED the shoe game and was always ready to go a round or two – with me or our horse shoer or anyone else who offered to play.

Stuart’s other game was RUNNING! Joyous, crazy zooming running! I’d grab his tail or snort a bit and he’d be off like a shot, with our corgi Trixie trailing in his wake and jumping all over him! Stuart was anything BUT graceful, and anyone who was nearby when he started running would automatically check for escape routes in case he might miss and run over them as he went by. It always looked a close thing, but he never knocked anyone over and rarely even brushed into you as he went by, crazed corgi at his heels.

He had all the other typical Anatolian traits, soft with the animals, leaning on people to do that passive-aggressive control… all that jazz. His most wonderful trait was his respect of fences…. Never went over anything even if he could… never went under or through! He did run out the gate sometimes – and was brought back a couple of times by one or another of our neighbors. (being led on a leash! Yikies!)

On Sunday, Sept. 23, we had an all-day shoot with Photographer Johnny Johnston… we did something like 18 horses all together! Great fun, lotsa work! We had to put away the horses in the arena above where we take photos so they wouldn’t distract the horses being photographed, likewise the dogs (and also some of the people we had here!) The results were worth all the effort, Johnny captured the beauty of our horses as only he can. Stuart was fine being put away 2 times that day, in the morning and after lunch. He stayed in the dog run with Trixie and Mellie. I can’t remember who put them away, it was Jen or Brenda.

Monday, we were having our huge trees cut back before the start of our Santa Ana wind season (60-80mph straight-line winds... we live in a "pass", so they hit Norco HARD). So there were a bunch of tree guys here, coming and going into the horse/dog area. I was going to be leaving the property for an “off-site” photo shoot with Johnny of me and Appy driving, so things were hectic, Johnny was here, and I went out to put the dogs away so they wouldn't slip out with the tree guys and/or their equipment. Trixie and Mellie went where they should go, but Stuart was running all around, trying to introduce himself to 10 or 15 guys working on 3 different trees all at the same time. He was excited and wound up. However, since he would often run out of the gate and around the neighborhood if a gate was left open, I felt that leaving him out loose on the property while we were gone wasn’t an option.
I called him to me and he came running. I didn’t have a leash with me, but I asked him to sit anyway, as that often had a calming effect on him. My next move was going to be to continue into the barn and get a lead rope, then to ask Stuart to sit again and put him away – if I couldn’t simply get him to come into a stall with me first. Nothing out of the ordinary at all.

I started to take a step forward and Stuart swung around in front of me to run off. The next thing I knew my right hand was in extreme pain. I yelled “STUART!” as I moved along with the motion of his mouth, and by the time I looked down at my hand to see it sliced up and covered in blood, Stuart was GONE. I headed to Michael’s workshop to ask him to take me to urgent care for stitches. Michael went out and called Stuart into a horse stall, where he locked him in without incident.

We asked Johnny to wait, and off we went. Meanwhile I tried to sort out the events in my mind. I hadn’t been touching Stuart… so I couldn’t have pulled on his collar (he’d have bit my arm and missed my hand if I had been holding his collar, anyway!) I’d been just going to walk past him into the barn! Maybe he’d swung away and just caught my hand in his mouth and panicked, biting down. That must have been it – he was just a big loveable doofus with a panic disorder, he’d never hurt me on purpose!

He had, however, hurt me very badly – he’d even come close to removing my index finger on my right hand, and there were another 6 or 7 severe lacerations from my palm to my wrist, on both sides of my hand. The Doctors didn’t want to stitch the wounds, because they were afraid they would become infected. They wrapped me up, shot me up with tetanus, antibiotics and painkillers, and sent me home with prescriptions of more of the same. The photo shoot was cancelled, as I couldn’t have held the reins. Johnny wanted to shoot my dog, but I still protested his innocence.

When we went out to the horse area later in the day, I asked Stuart to sit before I opened the stall door to let him out. He sat before I’d even finished the “s” in “sit”, and when I opened the door he wouldn’t even look at me. When I called him to me and asked him to sit, he came and sat behind me, looking most dejected. For all the time I healed, he was so very careful of my hand, propping it up on his head while he walked alongside me and never bumping into that side of me at all. He never even tried to start the shoe game with me.

Once I was out of the bandages (I’m still not out of pain, my index finger is painful, badly misshapen and doesn’t bend much at all) I began again to work with Stuart – putting my hand in his mouth, tugging (carefully) at his collar and ears, etc. As far as his reactions went, it was as if nothing had ever happened – but we knew that if it ever happened again, there’d be no choices left as to what we could do.

As time went on, I began to start to feel like I could start doing more with my right hand, although I’m still largely limited to doing whatever I can without heavy use of my index finger. (Yes, I saw an orthopedic Dr about it, but that’s a whole different story!) I’d started doing more with the young horses and was looking forward to getting a couple of them started in harness, as I’ve enjoyed driving Appy so much. I also was itching to get back to spinning yarn – I have our last wool clip all ready to go, two huge boxes of bluefaced Leicester wool blended with bombyx silk. I want to spin it all up and then dye it into jewel toned yarns for Michael to weave into cool things or to trade with knitters for handmade stuff.

Tuesday, December 11, we were getting feed delivered, and Stuart went charging out of the gate trying to run down the street again. We had closed the driveway gate, though – so he was limited to dashing around the driveway while I sort of alternated calling him and telling Mellie and Trixie to get back behind the gate, which they dutifully did, several times. The feed guy tried herding Stuart, and at one point went to grab his collar – I quickly told him no! Eventually, the feed guy went back inside the gate to the horse area while I was behind Stuart shooing him back, so we ended up with everyone on the correct sides of the gate.

I knew that there would be more truckloads of hay coming during the day, so obviously Stuart needed to be put away into a stall or corral before the next one or we’d risk him being out on the street again. I needed to get to my Chiropractic appointment, too. I still had a coil of lead rope in my hand, but made no immediate moves to try and catch him, as I knew he was revved up and excited/anxious. So I went into the horse area and played with the dogs, sending Trixie and Stuart off and running back and forth, zooming around me with happy reckless abandon.

Then Stuart came over, done with running and I asked him to sit. I waited a bit to be sure he was calm, and he was… so I plopped the coil of rope over his head and left it there – something I’d done quite a bit. (see photo from a different day)

I put my hands back down at my sides and waited to see if he’d be off and running again, but he remained sitting, smiling his big goofy grin at me. This time I didn’t make a move. I just stood there quietly, hands at my sides. Suddenly Stuart leaped up out of his sit and grabbed me by the left hand, pulling down on it and SHAKING it. I screamed, he dropped it and ran. Michael came out of the workshop to see me walking towards him with my whole arm covered in blood.

I grabbed some paper towels, some antibiotics and started making phone calls. I had to cancel my chiropractic appointment. My driving lesson. I had to do something other than bleed and freak out. Michael went in a stall and called the dogs. Mellie and Stuart came in with him and he locked them in. Later he let Mellie out. I called the pound, but they said they wouldn’t do anything about a giant dog who’d bitten someone two times until we’d kept him here another 10 days!?! DUH, he’d been here 2 and a half months AFTER the first bite, and I didn’t get rabies or whatever it is they wanted him to stay here for… but explaining that didn’t seem to make a difference – I also explained that he was fully vaccinated and was our own dog… apparently I had to subject myself and anyone who came into contact with Stuart to the risk of another bite before they’d do anything about it! Or would a 3rd bite merit another 10 day wait? (Way to serve the public, guys!)

Our vet came out and did what we knew had to be done. Stuart is no longer anxious. We tried to give him a happy life, and I do believe he was happy – but he was also just too unstable to be safe. I feel like a failure. I feel betrayed. I feel sad for the good dog we lost. And I feel angry at the bad parts of him and at the way he was raised to be a problem and then passed along to us.

Mainly I feel pain. 3 deep and severe lacerations on the same hand that has that bedamned piece of metal in it, several puncture wounds and an inability to really grip with either hand now. The scars on my right hand are still loud and tender. The index finger doesn’t curl or straighten out. At this point (a week after the bite) my middle, ring and pinkie finger on the left hand don’t curl enough to make a fist. I don’t know how long it’ll take or how much motion I’ll retain. We’re switching to Kaiser at the first of the year, perhaps they’ll be more help than the ortho Doctors in Corona have ever been.