Hi everyone. I have some sad news to share. We had to have Rudy euthanized.

Lately, he's taken to attacking us (me in particular) and the other dogs. We knew when we took him into our home that he had some very real problems with aggression. And we had high, high hopes we could help him to find a more peaceful life. But...

In the past two weeks, he's been viciously aggressive. He's bitten me twice before. But on Thursday, some switch went off in his brain. I really don't know what triggered it. We can speculate til we're blue, but truthfully we'll never know. However, this time I simply moved my chair in the office and he lunged at me, tearing my shirt from the underarm. Thankfully, he did not get ahold of me there. But as the shirt tore, he grabbed my left hand and arm, slicing through my middle finger. I didn't fight him, knowing that trying to free my hand would make the damage worse. He snarled and growled and attacked over and over. I just prayed it would end. Once he slid off my hand, he went after my stomach, landing a puncture wound on my hip. Then he lunged at my legs, tearing a good slice of my left thigh. I just couldn't back him off. He was lunging and moving toward me trying to back me against the wall of the office. I hate to admit to fighting my way out, but that is what I had to do. I finally got away, but not until great injury was done...me to my body and him to his soul. And after tasting that amount of blood, he wasn't ending his stalking.

I called Patti (CorgiMom) at work and told her to come home. She arrived 30 minutes later to find me dazed and bleeding. My doctor saw me shortly afterward. He was required, because of the severity of the attack, to provide a dog-bite report to the Board of Health. And, as our law is very specific about what happens to a bite dog, we had the choice of quarantine or euthanasia. Rudy never could have handled quarantine and would have come away a much more aggressive dog. We had to make the difficult choice to put him down. The hardest part is knowing that immediately upon death, they hacksaw his head off for post-mortem. And our usually sympathetic vet seemed very UNsympathetic, ordering us out of the exam room and taking him to the back for euthanasia and "the procedure." I so much wanted to hug him...just once. He was never approachable. I never felt the joy of his fur against my face. And both of us wanted that before he was taken away, but we were robbed of it. It made the loss that much more horrific.

I cannot begin to tell you how devastated we both are. We went into this rescue with the very best of intentions. Goddess knows we tried everything we could. He was a beautiful dog. And he could have had a beautiful heart. But someone somewhere beat the living daylights out of this animal. Someone somewhere should be ashamed at what they did. You could tell Rudy wanted to be happy and wanted to not be angry and fearful. But he just couldn't get beyond what had been done to him.

Now his restless soul is at peace, dancing and laughing on the other side of the Bridge. He is enjoying freedom of spirit for the first time since he was a little bitty pup. We are trying to comfort ourselves and the rest of our pack with that thought, but are often coming up empty and in deep, heartfelt pain. Our anger at his previous owners is tempered by our tears and our hope that now he is at peace.

I pray he's playing fetch with Goddess and making the angels and fairies laugh with delight. He loved a good game of fetch the ball. Sometimes I think it was his only time of real joy. He deserves every special pet on the head he gets now. And I hope when he re-enters this life, we are blessed with the opportunity to again have his spirit in our home.

We ask your prayers as we deal with this loss, for it is very, very great and we are broken hearted.

Cindi & Patti