I am Michelle D. Carter

Zoey is a stray dog that a friend of a friend found in January. Kathy, our friend, called to see if we wanted a dog. I said NO! She describes her as a really good dog with a sweet disposition, is house-trained, and bakes the best muffins. OK, I’m exaggerating about the last item. With the exception of a small white spot on her chest, she’s an all black, lab-mix. Kathy would keep her; but her dog, Bella, and Zoey just don’t get along. 

I tell Kathy she needs to talk Tim into it. I know him well enough to know he’s going to say no, regardless of who asks. As always, I’m putting all the pressure on him to be the “bad cop.” The kids can explain to their therapist that it was their Father who deprived them of a normal childhood by not allowing them to have a pet.

Since we were tentative about the entire situation, Kathy suggested that we take the dog on a trial basis. We’ll tell the kids that we’re watching the dog for Aunt Kathy. We didn’t want to get the kid’s hopes up in the event it just didn’t work. I think Kathy missed her calling in sales.

She took Zoey to the vet to get her shots on the way to drop her off at our house. He estimates that she’s around 2 to 3 years old and weighs almost 50 lbs. She’s had a litter and doesn’t appear to have been “fixed.”

The kids couldn’t be more thrilled they are watching a dog. As expected, she is a little timid. Her most recent living arrangements included two weeks under a pine tree. The couple who originally found her had cats and couldn’t let her in the house, and a couple of days shacking-up at Kathy’s where she was the new kid, who couldn’t get along with her bunk-mate, Bella, who had the home court advantage and is about 25% larger.

We think she must have been abused by a male because she tends to stay away from men, including Tim, as much as possible. Things were going very well. She is great with the kids, hasn’t chewed-up anything and always goes outside to do her business. After a couple of days of watching her, we ask the kids if they’d like to keep her. It was silly to ask the question, we knew the answer. YES!!!

Once the decision was made and the kids were settling into their new role as owners, the dog that was too good to be true began to display her other, darker side. Imagine, if you will, the canine version of Linda Blair’s character in The Exorcist, with two additional legs and no projectile pea soup…

It was her third evening in our home; Tim headed upstairs to begin our usual evening routine and found her sitting on our bed. Our previous dog, Hallie, spent nearly 11 years with me, all of which were spent sleeping in the same bed with me. It’s almost impossible to extract things from my bed. For a while, Hallie, Alyssa, Tim and I shared a bed. It took a one-way trip to doggie heaven for Hallie and nearly 5 years to get Alyssa out of our bed. I wasn’t letting all that work go to waste. Zoey is not sleeping on our bed. This is one issue where Tim is thrilled that I came to my senses.

He tells her to get down. She growls at him in full defense mode with fangs out and the hair was standing straight up on the back of her neck, or was that the hair on Tim’s neck? Since she obviously has issues with men, don’t we all, and I have the best rapport with her, Tim shrieks for me. I go into our room, look into her big brown loving eyes, point to the floor and tell her in a firm voice to “get down.” She immediately jumps right off. Meanwhile he’s still whimpering about red eyes and her head spinning around. I’m thinking the two of them need to spend some quality time together so Zoey can learn that Tim is the Alpha dog. Or at least let him think he is.

Within a couple of minutes, she’s back on our bed again. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it, I say to myself. I repeat my actions of a few minutes early. This time, I get the snarling, barking and hair standing up. I tried to get close so I could “assist” her to the floor. She attempts to sink her pearly whites into me. What the hell?! I call for back-up. With the kids safely sheltered in their rooms, we flank her with the only escape route leading downstairs. After assessing the situation, she takes the opportunity and runs downstairs and straight into her crate, where she spends the night.

Kathy hooked us up with the local “Dog Whisperer” who agreed that Zoey was attempting to assert her position as Alpha dog and probably did experience trauma as the result of abuse from a male. He recommended that we keep a leash attached to her collar even while she’s in the house. It would enable me to get her off the bed (or Tim’s throat) without getting too close to her. Either he performed an over-the-phone dog-whispering-exorcism or she’s an extremely bright dog. It took her a couple of weeks to muster the courage to go upstairs and other than hurdling the end table to flee the vacuum, she’s never attempted to get on the furniture.

She’s been with us almost six months and sleeps by my side of the bed at night. She still barks at Tim all the time. Not too long ago, the kids were in the basement when Tim got home from work. Zoey started to bark and I heard Alyssa hollering, “Daddy’s home!”

The kids take her for a walk almost every day. They do a good job. Zoey must like it because she’s always excited to have the chain out and ready to go. She’s great with ornery boys. They try to ride her like a horse, lay on her like a pillow and she takes it all without a complaint.

She’s still a very freaky girl! But she’s our dog and we love her. Her nickname is Zorita, Chiquita Banana.

I don’t know what you’ve been through Zoey, but I hope you realize we love you and that makes you stronger.

PS – Tim, you really don’t need to sleep with the Cross under your pillow.