Gordon’s Alive

My dog Gordon has a bit of an attitude. He’s a little skinny guy at 25lbs, and his physique is closer to his Italian Greyhound half than his Australian Shepherd half. Despite this, he likes to get in the face of bigger dogs than him. We’ve tried to wean him off this behavior, but he doesn’t make it easy. We keep trying.

When I got back from my work trip to Rome recently, I took BART from SFO to Rockridge, where Cassie picked me up. As she drove, she told me that Gordon had got into a fight on his daily walk – with a pit bull terrier. It had happened earlier in the week, but she hadn’t told me about it because she didn’t want to worry me. Everything was alright now, but it was pretty scary.

Basically Gordon had got in the face of another dog, and this dog had not backed down. Gordon had pushed it, and the other dog had got mad. Gordon ended up with a couple of puncture wounds and three staples in his belly. He had been on morphine for a couple of days, but by the time I saw him, he was up and about, and looking great.

The most scary thing about it was the collar. Gordon has this beautiful collar from Alpenschatz, which is studded with little metal medallions. When I was checking out his wounds, and giving him lots of love when I saw him again, I saw that one of the metal medallions had a tooth mark that went nearly the all the way through the metal and the leather. Check it out:

This was all a few weeks ago now, and Gordon is back to his punchy little self. The staples are out, his shaved patches are growing back, and he’s barking at clouds once again. Thank goodness for his collar, and his muzzle.