Sunday, February 06, 2011

Goodbye Keeks. Love you.


I like to "keep it real" on this blog, but it seems like I've had a lot of "keeping it real" posts lately. At what point does it go from "keeping it real" to "This woman has some serious issues!" [Wait, don't answer that.]
I've posted in the last few months about how unhappy our dog Kilo has been. She's become super bored. The backyard is too small. We've upped the walks by triple, and that has helped some with the boredom.
I remember when we brought Kilo home, on a whim. I saw "1/2 Akita 1/2 Husky" and just processed "1/2 Husky." It wasn't until later that night that I researched about Akitas. Very cool dogs. I tried to ignore the part about how lots of Akitas do best as the only dog and love their people but will happily kill other animals. I remember someone writing me telling me to be aware that after the first few years Kilo might snap and turn into a different dog. Here we are, 2.5 years later.
Kilo is a dog that needs to be the only dog in the family. We are a family that wants more than one dog. We've had a revolving door of dogs go in and out of this house this year, mostly because we were trying to find a dog that Kilo could attach to and allow to be here without attacking or killing. With the pup Scarlett, we thought we had finally found Ki-Ki's doggie soul mate. Then Scarlett died.
Kilo has been growling more and more. Vicious growls. But 99% of the time she does nothing except growl. During the other 1% of the time she happily tries to kill our other two dogs. She's also growled at the little kids. Just saying it like it is.
She LOVES us. She loves our family. But she is not happy here. This is not the home where she is the star attraction. This is not the quiet home with lots of land that she would be most happy with. On Monday--after she attacked our pup Mac and left him bleeding profusely--we got real with ourselves. We had to pick Kilo or the other dogs. Simple as that.
Like I said, I am just not someone who wants only one dog. I love ALL of my dogs. I don't want any of them to leave, but someone had to leave.
I put up an ad on Craigslist telling all of the wonderful and not-so-wonderful qualities Kilo had. No way am I taking this dog to any sort of shelter or pound--EVER. No way am I letting her go to just anybody. Days went by and there was not a single response to my ad. I starting wondering if we could work things out with a muzzle, but that just seems cruel to me. Plus, she's still unhappy with the loud house, small yard situation.
A few days ago I got a response from a family. As it turns out, this family looks to be the perfect fit for my gorgeous girl. Single mom with teen-age son and elementary age granddaughter. They have no other animals (just lost their only dog last week) and have an acre of land. Ugh for us. And, good for Kilo.
As I write this her potential new family is coming over to meet her. I feel pretty confident that they will fall in love with her and take her home. I feel pretty confident that Kilo's life is about to get a lot happier. Our lives...we will miss her terribly, but we'll be thankful that she's happy and we won't have to worry about one of our other two dogs being killed during one of her off moments.
My name is Anita. I love my pets dearly, but will not keep them in my home without condition. I know this is the best thing for all of us, but it still sucks. Kilo will be happier. Our home will be safer. Now I just have to hope the little pup doesn't have psychological issues from being attached twice in his first 9 weeks of life.
Anita
P.S. I'm going to turn comments off for this post. I put this up here for me, but don't desire to hear positive or negative feedback right now. I don't deserve anybody's sympathies, and I'm too fragile to hear criticism at this moment.

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