Snaggletooth

The Defendant - Jack Burgess, Black Labrador, 9 years old. Bad hips, bad joints, a very loving dog but does NOT like to be jumped on at all. Jack was a rescue dog that came from several different abusive environments before we found him nearly 8 years ago. He has been a loving member of our house ever since. Everyone who meets him swears he is the most loving dog they have ever met, to which we typically just nod our head in agreement.

The victim - Landon Burgess, 3-year old boy, full of energy, been warned NOT to jump on Jack over and over again by his parents, known to not have the best memory and has demonstrated "selective hearing" on more than one occasion.

The crime - On Thursday, December 7, 2011 Landon was in the living room petting and giving hugs to both of our dogs. At one point he even called Michaela into the living room to tell her how much he loves our dogs and how much they love him. Michaela then proceeded to the back of the house to get ready for work, all the while getting choked up in a sappy sort of way at the love fest going on in the front of the house. Approximately two minutes later all other thoughts were wiped from her mind as she heard a distinctive scream and rushed to the front of the house where Landon was bleeding profusely from his ear and head while Jack was cowering in the corner. What was later surmised to have happened is as follows: Landon either jumped on Jack or proceeded to go a little too far with the "love fest", possibly squeezing Jack too tightly or somehow agitating the defendant. Jack turned around to warn off Landon, in this case providing a nip at him. Unfortunately said "nip" ended up catching the top cusp of Landon's ear. As Landon wrenched his head back to put space between himself and the defendant, Jack's tooth caught on the lip of his ear and tore.

The next few minutes/hours/days (depending on who you ask) were pure insanity. With Michaela's change in job recently, we also changed our healthcare benefits to my company. However, we had NOT needed to use them up to this point, so Michaela had no idea where to take Landon. I was already at work when all this went down, but as soon as she called me with both started calling every number listed to our healthcare plan. Unfortunately it was well before any call centers were open and the one triage nurse we were able to speak to had no idea where we should take him. So Michaela ended up just taking him to the nearest hospital. He ended up needing to get 6 stitches in his ear and 1 on his face (near his temple) which is approximately 7 more stitches than I've ever received. He also had to get a huge anesthetic shot in his leg, which apparently made him act like a drunk sailor!

I ended up coming home to stay with him in the afternoon and we watched a few movies (Smurfs and Mr. Popper's Penguins)...I also had to stay with him today since we had a follow-up appointment with the doctor...he gets his stitches out next Tuesday thankfully. Other than that, Landon is totally fine and the incident didn't seem to slow him down a bit. The only issues we've run into since is that he has to be on a healthy dose of antibiotics for the next week and he really doesn't like them so we're having to negotiate a little more than we'd like with him.

After reviewing all facts listed above, the jury reached a verdict of "Not Guilty" as there was not enough evidence to convict. Jack has always been a great dog and has always been extremely gentle and patient with Landon, so we're just going to chalk this one up as a learning experience to both of them (especially the kid). From here on out, he'll definitely take it easy with our dogs, but still loves them just the same.

May you have a "drama-free" weekend...