Mea Culpa

This entry is very hard for me to write so please excuse its brevity. Yesterday the boxer we were "borrowing" for our little big dog experiment bit Crabman in the face. The bite tore through his upper lip, requiring stitches (No, I don't know exactly how many... I just know that somehow I had the presence to make sure it was a plastic surgeon who placed them.) As you can imagine, I feel absolutely, utterly, devastatingly horrible that this happened. Any regular reader to this blog knows that I was the one who longed to bring a big dog into our household, not Plumberboy and not our boys. Therefore, I take complete 100% responsibility for what happened yesterday. There's no need to chime in and say "I told you so!" but I'm leaving the comment option on so that you can do so if you get the hankering. (Really, it's the least I deserve.) I will say that I took every reasonable precaution to guard against such a situation but as anyone with half a brain should know, if you bring in a dog that outweighs your kid 2-to-1 then you should know that this sort of thing is --at the very least-- on the periphery of possible. So again, I TOTALLY GET IT. This is my fault and I just pray I don't have a daily reminder in the form of Crabman's lip. And yes, the dog is outta here. I think she longed to be home and maybe that was at the root of her actions anyway. (Though hopefully as time passes I'll chose to think that maybe she found Crabman's face as irresistibly cute as I do and just wanted to gnaw on it a bit!)

And to address another obvious question (though me thinks the answer is equally obvious)... NO, we are no longer getting another dog. I emailed both rescues that we were working with and withdrew our application. Heck, I might even get rid of our overly aggressive 4-lb poodle while I'm at it (email me!) Maybe someday if either of our kids comes to us of their own volition and asks for a dog, then we may consider trying this all over again. But if they grow up to be the dude that puts the dogs to sleep at the humane shelter then I'm okay with that too. I think they've earned that right.

PS: So yesterday I felt really, really sorry for myself. I mean, like how many boxers go around biting kids in the face? Um, basically none so I can't believe that once again this happened to US! But then God gave me a little (*lot!*) perspective in the form of this. And just to drive His message home, tonight is the night I take dinner to our college minister's family who lost their infant daughter a couple of weeks ago... because of a heart defect. No, seriously, I REALLY DO GET IT NOW!!! And, boyoboy, have I been humbled.

PPS: On a lighter note...In an obvious attempt to redeem their species, our two dogs immediately whizzed on a garbage can in the laundry room and barfed on the kitchen floor. Seriously, thanks.