In December 2010, I ran across a Facebook post that had been shared by one of my animal rescue friends. The post originated from a "pit bull rescue" in Charlotte, North Carolina, and included a photo album full of adoptable dogs and their descriptions. The rescue had a detrimental family emergency (I never knew what that emergency was) and so all of their dogs needed to be homed or boarded ASAP. Mecklenburg County, where Charlotte is located, is a "no pit" county......in other words, if a "pit" hits a shelter, it will be immediately put to sleep because the county is not allowed to locally adopt him/her out. The only hope for a "pit" in a county that practices BSL (Breed Specific Legislation) is that a qualified rescue comes in and scoops them up before D-Day arrives. And then that rescue has to find homes for them outside of the county. I never knew Ollie's back story....but he was one of the "pits" in the rescue. I saw this photo of a gangly, young, adorable dog......not a little puppy but not quite an adult.....with a description that basically called him dog-friendly, cat-friendly, kid-friendly, house-trained, crate-trained and knows simple commands.
P.S. There's actually no such thing as a "pit bull" breed. This term has been given to dogs that have a certain image, but these dogs are usually some breed or mix of terrier. And sometimes dogs deemed "pit bulls" don't have any of these breeds in them at all. But Ollie was likely an American Staffordshire Terrior mix.
I didn't even ask Lucas about it, because I knew he would say no to Dog #4. I just contacted the rescue owner, filled out an application, and made arrangements to come and get Ollie (his name given to him by the rescue, which he knew was his name so I never changed). I got up super early a few days later, drove to Charlotte, picked up Ollie, called Lucas on the way to let him know I was bringing home a dog, and drove back home. The rescue owner was so sad (but also happy) about giving Ollie up that she was crying and hugging him the whole time during our meet-up. And she waived the adoption fee ($100) because I had driven as far as I did to come get him.
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| The freedom ride home. |
Ollie fit right into the family. He was just as described: dog-friendly, cat-friendly, kid-friendly, house-trained, crate-trained and knew simple commands. He was overly submissive on the regular but didn't put up with crap if someone (aka his super bossy sister, Piper) tried to start a fight with him. For the longest time we weren't even sure if he could bark, because he was just always so quiet. He loved to run and play in the yard with the other dogs, and on warm days he loved to bask in the sun in the middle of the yard, but his favorite place was always inside with his humans. My kids would sit beside him and bring him their toys to play with and lay on him and pet him and roll over him and do whatever else that would annoy most dogs....but he would just sit there and take it like a trooper. If it got too annoying, he would simply get up and walk away.
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| Shortly after arriving to his new home (our old rental house). |
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| All four doggy kiddos. Massai (bottom left) passed away two years ago this March. |
P.S. I don't normally EVER advise that it's okay for a child to poke, prod, annoy or climb on a dog. In fact, I won't let it happen with my other two. Not because they're not kid- and baby-friendly (because they are), but because I know their personalities and that they're more likely to "snap" if something accidentally hurts or passes beyond the point of just being annoying. Ollie was just different, and anybody who had witnessed it would agree. If Lucy was sitting by his belly, he would change the way he moved his feet around so that he wouldn't accidentally smack her in the face with a paw. He was always a gentle giant, but he became absurdly gentle around the kids. Every move around them was precise and calculated. He never ONCE hurt them or upset them, even on accident. I'm fully aware that every creature has its breaking point, but his was sky high.
The past few weeks have consisted of on-and-off cold weather. Ollie didn't like the cold. So in the mornings, if the temperature was in the 20s or 30s, I would feed the dogs and then let them outside to pee/poop/run/bark/whatever, but then let them back inside 10-15 minutes later until it warmed up enough for them to stay outside for the afternoon. Ollie would instantly curl up on the floor blankets for a nap. The other two usually ended up following me around (for those of you who know Daisy, you know she's my shadow) and would usually end up outside for the day way before Ollie did, because he often made NO EFFORT to move towards the door to go outside. He would pretend to be asleep.
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| A warmer, summer day. |
Yesterday wasn't any different. I let the dogs out of their crates, I fed them, Ollie spun in circles like normal for his breakfast (which he ate all of), I let them outside, and then a few minutes later I let them in. Piper and Daisy went out about an hour after that, and Ollie went out (forcefully, because it was still in the 30s) around 11:00 or so. My mom had come over to run an errand with me, and Ollie was the normal "happy skipper" to see her as he always was. I conned him into going outside since we were about to leave, and that was the last time I talked to him.
I heard him outside barking at random times throughout the rest of the day (like normal), so I never worried about a thing. I normally let the dogs in as the sun's going down, but since I was working on dinner and Lucas was running around entertaining the kids (and it was, according to my phone, 39 degrees and therefore not freezing), I left them outside until after dinner. We got the kids ready for bed, and then I went downstairs to let the dogs in and feed them. Ollie is usually the first one at the back door, unless he happens to be sleeping in the barn.....then it takes him all of a few seconds to get up and run inside. Tonight, Piper and Daisy ran inside, but Ollie never came. I stuck my head out of the garage and called for him....nothing. I waited and listened (barking, crying, whining, anything)......nothing. So I went out in the yard to call him and investigate. That's when I saw the white stripe of his nose lying on the ground. I ran over to him, called his name over and over, shook him, squeezed on his armpit for a heartbeat......but I knew. He was gone.
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| A previous happier drive to the vet. |
This morning, I dropped of the kids at my mom's house while I took Ollie to the vet. I knew I wanted to have him cremated, but I also wanted to inquire about finding out what happened. The vet said he couldn't find anything initially wrong with him from a physical exam, and offered to do an autopsy, which he said he would start right away. About an hour or so later, he called.
The vet said that Ollie's abdomen was full of non-clotting blood. He could not identify the source of the blood (he said that all of Ollie's organs looked normal), but that blood that won't clot is typically associated with poison (such as rat poison). He asked me if Ollie could have eaten a rodent that had ingested poison. I told him that if this had been my hound dog Piper (who IS known to catch and eat mice, moles, opossum, chipmunks and squirrels), that I wouldn't be at all surprised. But that Ollie has NEVER been known to kill or eat rodents......he thinks they're pretty gross. The vet asked me to bring in one of my other dogs so that he could test their blood. I immediately went home, grabbed Piper, and returned to the vet. He took a vial of her blood and waited for it to clot (which he said should be within two minutes). Piper's blood NEVER clotted. During our entire conversation, her vial of blood stayed the consistency of water.
The vet said that due to the fact that two of my dogs (and likely Daisy as well) have blood so thin that it won't clot, it is HIGHLY suspicious that they have been intentionally poisoned. Piper and Daisy have each been prescribed a large dose of Vitamin K, which should work towards clotting the blood and returning it back to normal. IF they survive long enough for it to work, that is. The vet said it typically takes 20-30 days to get the blood to normal. I take Piper back to the vet in a week to see how the Vitamin K is doing. Meanwhile, I've been instructed to keep the dogs inside as much as possible.....don't leave them unattended for long periods out in the backyard.
I know that there is at least one neighbor in my neighborhood who has been annoyed by my large dogs. They bark at other dogs walking by, they bark at people walking by, they bark at squirrels in the trees, they bark at each other, and so on. They don't bark all the time or just bark to be barking (they sleep a lot of their time outside), but they definitely bark if there's something worth barking at. Which is why I typically don't let them outside until between 8:00 and 9:00 am and make sure they're inside by 9:00 pm. And in the wintertime when it's cold out (or if it's raining), they hang out indoors a lot more throughout the day, sometimes almost ALL day. And Ollie might have looked scary to some, but he was ABSOLUTELY HARMLESS. If he could have been a 70 lb lap dog, he totally would have. He was the best dog that I have EVER had and he did NOT deserve this. And for that matter, neither do my other two.
I walked the yard and found zero evidence of foul play. No discarded containers inside or outside of the fence, no food bowls or food containers that shouldn't be there....nothing. But I also didn't really expect to find anything. The vet said that if my dogs were indeed intentionally poisoned, it could have actually been done weeks ago.
I've had other pets die for various reasons (some avoidable, some not), and they have all made me very upset, because they were all my babies. And I've never really gotten over any of their deaths. But this whole situation is just SO SAD. Something unexpected (cancer, a tumor, a parasite, a heart attack, etc) would have been just as heartbreaking......but the fact that it's looking like a human INTENTIONALLY did this makes me not just incredibly sad, but sick to my stomach. And the fact that my other two dogs are also fighting for their lives without even knowing it also makes me sick to my stomach. I live in a GOOD neighborhood. I live in a NICE neighborhood. I live in a SAFE neighborhood. So this is like a punch to the gut.
There will never be "justice" for what happened to Ollie. I sent out an email to the neighborhood communications guy to disperse to the community, and I also posted the same email to our community Nextdoor website. I wanted to alert other neighbors with dogs that they might want to get their dogs (or even cats) checked out since there are apparently NO symptoms for a warning, and that if they had any info as to who might have done this, to please let me know. I'm sure I'll never find out who did it or that there is even anything I could do about it if I did, but at least the neighbors would know (or be suspicious of) who the asshole is.
We'll miss you, Ollie. You had a great life up until the very end, and I'm glad for that.
Now to keep tabs on the other two.....let's all cross our fingers that the Vitamin K does the trick and we don't have any other unhappy endings!
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