Oh, Xiao Gou Gou

I met Xiao Gou on a cold, misty December morning in Sichuan, China. Mario and I were laboriously ascending the 300 steep stairs that spanned "The Hill" between our apartment on the XiNanKeJi (Southwest University of Science and Technology) Old Campus and the New Campus, on our way to conduct my final oral exams with our respective classes. All of a sudden, rapid movement caught my eye...a tiny ball of fur was catapulting down the stairs towards me. It was a puppy, probably no more than five or six weeks old. I caught him up, thinking surely someone would appear to claim him, but no one did. No one was around. No one came chasing down the stairs after him, and no calls echoed in the misty morning. The rest of the world was still and silent. It was as if he had sprung into being from a spiderweb, or fallen from the sky.

Now, I had never been a dog-lover. A lover of animals in general, yes, but cats had always been my forte. For some reason, no dog had ever been able to get its little pointy teeth into my heart. But then there was Xiao Gou (Little Dog, in Mandarin). He was so incredibly tiny. He would be roadkill or else dinner, I told Mario frantically, if we didn't rescue him. Making a quick decision, and ignoring my then-boyfriend's protests, I tucked him under my warm coat and continued up the hill to class, keeping an eye out for any sign that someone loved and wanted him back. There was none.

As he slept in the arm of my coat throughout my exams, I wondered what the heck I would do next. Aha, I thought--my friend EmilyPie, who was living and teaching in China at the same university with us, had been talking about wanting a dog! As soon as I was done with my students I hightailed it to her apartment to try to hawk my furry, snuggly wares. But, as cute as Emily thought he was, her husband had the final say. Now, you can always count on B to maintain perspective when the women around him are swaying like willows in fitful breezes of hormonal impulse. Wise to the enormity of adopting a dog in a foreign county, he put the kibosh on any idea of adoption.

Tragically, Mario and I had not such fortitude. We put up posters in Chinese looking for the missing owner, but with the passing days our hope that someone would call transmuted to relief that no one had. My family was amazed...I was falling for a dog. By the end of a week, Xiao Gou was Xiao Gou, and he was irrevocably ours.

Over the next 9 months we adjusted our lives to having a living, breathing creature with needs in our lives...stumbled down from our third-floor apartment for multiple midnight potty breaks, rushed home from dinners out to snuggle and take care of him, having him vaccinated and neutered (ugh, a god-awful experience in China!), arranged for doggysitters when we went traveling for extended periods. When it came time to leave our China life and return to the United States, there was no question of leaving him behind. With a ton of help from one of our students, Xiao cleared the extensive customs process and became certified to leave his mother country and become a US dog-izen. Enduring the sixteen-hour flight back, knowing our baby was kenneled somewhere beneath the plane in a dark hold, was probably one of the most traumatic experiences of my life, so I can only guess at how it was for him. But when we arrived at LAX, there he was by the oversized baggage claim, safe and sound in his kennel, yipping woefully for his mama and papa.

I don't know when the change occurred in his temperament. As a pup, Xiao Gou had always been a friendly if over-exhuberant dog who got super excited when people came over. But for some reason, back in America, he began to exhibit signs of aggression towards strangers in his territory, specifically lunging for and biting their ankles. It took Mario and I quite some time, and several bad situations, to adjust to the fact that this new side of the puppy we loved so much was real and dangerous, not just a fluke. While he has never, ever exhibited any signs of agression towards us or anyone he's familiar with, having people over has become something we have to be very careful about, either shutting Xiao away or keeping him on a leash until he's used to people. We never let him run free in a public place without a leash, and we never let strangers pet him. Unfortunately, several people suffered ankle bites, including Mario's sister and my friend Megan, before we realized exactly how much vigilance was required.

It's the weirdest thing, that he does this. At home with us, or with friends or family that he knows, he is the perfect dog, mellow and generally very obedient. When strangers appear on the scene, though, something snaps in his mind. I can see that he knows he's not supposed to bite, but where it's protectiveness or territorialness or both, something fierce comes into his eyes with the appearance of an unapproved party. We have always been well aware that this is cause for concern but have dealt with it mainly by trying to avoid the situations that provoke this behavior.

The other day, when my mom was over here babysitting Scarlett, Xiao bit her dog Whiskey. For some reason, Xiao has always had some issues with Whiskey, even though most of the time they play together fine. Xiao is usually either great with other dogs or disinterested in and fussily irritated with them, usually depending on their size, so the only reason I can think of for this is that Whiskey is the only dog he ever encounters who is not neutered. Whatever the reason, he has snapped at Whiskey multiple times both in his territory and Whiskey's, usually over cookies or food. 99% of the time, they are best buds. 1% of the time, Xiao has issues. Add this pre-existing problem to the disruption and displacement my dogs are already feeling because of the baby...not a good cocktail.

It was kind of a bad bite, and my mom dallied on taking Whiskey to the vet to have it cleaned, despite the fact that I begged her to go as soon as I knew about it. It got infected, as I predicted it would, resulting in him having to be rushed in the next day, and Whiskey almost lost his eye.

My family loves their dogs. Whiskey is my parents' baby, has been since my sister and I grew up and flew the nest. His injury has caused them to conclude that Xiao Gou is basically a threat to national security. They are leaving me intervention-style messages prodding us to get rid of him. I have been crying and stressin and not returning their calls.

I do not know what to do. On one hand, I am not trying to deny that Xiao's problem is real and dangerous and a possible liability. I really hate having to worry about having an aggressive dog. I adore having people over and would love, love, love it if Xiao could be the kind of welcoming sweet dog that my sister and my friends and my parents are fortunate enough to have. He has already caused problems with Mario's family--as I said, he bit Mario's sister, and she now (rightfully, I know) takes a "him or me" attitude which has spread to Mario's parents, even though Xiao is great around them, and they are constantly hinting about it, which in turn makes me defensive, and then I put out my lower lip and brattily tell my husband "I'd rather have him." (I will be the first to admit it--I am aggressive-aggressive, always have been, and passive-agressive approaches to things send me over the edge.)

On the other, Xiao is Mario and I's first baby. We have literally been across the world with him. He loves and trusts us. He is the absolutely perfect dog in our home environment--I have never felt threatened, for a second, by him. He has shown very little interest in the baby so far, much less than our other dog Nika or than Whiskey, and has not exhibited any sign of aggressiveness at all--and trust me, I've been watching. I do not believe that animals are disposable...I believe they are commitments for life. I would never, ever, for my entire life feel good about myself ever again if I just dumped him in a shelter or, god forbid, had him put down. And, not that I would ever encourage his behavior, but I do have to admit I feel safe at home alone, and especially now with the baby, knowing that if an intruder ever broke in, they would probably lose a limb.

Add this to the normal round of sore nipples and increasingly fussy baby and school starting and postpartum crap, and I am seriously in the dumps. I left a message at a local trainer to start arranging private sessions with us as soon as possible. Please everyone hope for me that training will help, and that the beautiful golden furball I have adored since puppyhood is fixable, because I will just die if having a baby means I have to break one of the innate tennets of my being, which is absolute love and commitment to my animals.