My Stupid Dogs

On Saturday morning, Grace picked a fight with Pippa and Pip won.

We were all out in the yard doing our own thing when Grace snapped. Brett was busy at his table saw while I was edging the lawn. I noticed Grace standing alone and I looked up to see Pippa trotting over to her to say hi. Pip wagged her tail and bumped her little nose on Grace’s snout and then they both went very still, and then Grace went for it. The snarling was awful. Their big rubber lips pulled back to expose violent dog teeth you only ever see in movies! I circled around them, grabbing back legs and pulling them away but it wouldn’t separate them. I screamed for Brett who couldn’t hear me over the roar of his saw. So I kicked my beloved babies. I swiped their legs and kicked their bellies and they only gnashed and bit at each other.

Brett finally looked up and saw the commotion. Apparently he was in the midst of a more dangerous cut and could not abandon his grip. He calmly held up one finger at me. I looked down at the mauling at my feet and wondered how I got here in life. Finally after what felt like a full minute but was probably about 15 seconds, I grabbed Grace’s legs and Brett lifted Pippa and Brett had to pry them apart.  

The girls continued to buck and try to wiggle away from us. I can barely lift fat Grace so I struggled to hold her still. Brett tossed Pip into the house and came back to tend to Grace’s very bloody leg. She had a gross gash or two.

We mulled for a long time before taking her to an emergency vet clinic. Brett wanted to pull a Don Hon and sew her up himself. I wasn’t against the idea but neither of us felt certain about dogfight protocol.

We returned home a few hours later with six stitches in Grace’s leg and tense vibes between the pups. Grace was high on painkillers so she laid in our bedroom with the door closed while Pip stared through the glass muttering threats. Actually Pip seemed to want to apologize and I had become afraid of both of them.

Grace is on lockdown for two weeks until she gets her stitches removed. She seems unphased by the wound and medicines and is only annoyed that I won't let her out to run. Even the vet that stitched her up referred to Grace as “quite stoic." Now, on day four since The Blowout the girls are acting like nothing happened. They wag their tails at each other and boop noses just like they did before.

Brett and I however, are not acting like nothing happened and we’ve had a range of “well your dog…” arguments. Grace started it but Pip caused actual harm. Now when I’m sitting with one of the pups and they are too still while looking at me, I get scared of them.

Papa Union got quite cranky about the fight and told me we have to get of one of them and even though I’m basically thirty and Dad’s not in charge anymore, I still felt like he was going to make me pick one to dump somewhere and it made the whole thing worse. We don't know what to do.

So now I have a can of mace in the house just for dogfights.

Is that reasonable or just redneckish?