The first time our dog bit our son...

...was the last time.  That's the only reasonable way that sentence should end. Right?

Bad dog

I have a short story for you.  A friend told me about the time his little baby girl was bitten in the face by his ex-partner's dog.  He demanded the dog be put down or else.  His ex-partner loved that dog.  She and her mother tried to convince him that the dog was just adjusting and had always been a good dog and why not give him a second chance?  My friend got in his car, took the dog from his ex-partner's house, drove him to the vet, and had him put down.  I heard that story in disbelief of the ex-partner's attitude.  What kind of people would keep a dog that bit a child on her face?

Over the years, I've marveled at the devotion and love friends and family members show towards their dogs.  They let them share their furniture, miss vacations to care for them, spend thousands of dollars on vet bills, usher them in and out of the house a thousand times during a single meal, worry about them as they age, and then let them go when it's time. 

Not us, I've always insisted.  And for damn sure, if I ever - I mean ever had a pet that bit my kid, that pet would be history before my kid had stopped crying.  Except something happens to you when A) you actually get a dog, and B) you live where we've been living this year. 

First, A:  I grew up with a dog, a German Shepherd, in fact.  She was very sweet and gentle, and she lived a good, long life.  Her name was Cleo.  When we arrived in Mekele, an American family was desperate to get rid of an 8 month old German Shepherd they'd been saddled with when his owners had to return to the US unexpectedly.  Enter Marta Woodward, whose boys had never had a dog, and who'd always sworn that if she ever lived in Africa again, she'd get a dog.  We took the dog, changed his name from Howard (come on) to Teddy, and proceeded to experience what every dog owner I've ever known experiences; the almost total loss of previously held boundaries.  No, Teddy does not share our furniture, and no, we don't get up a million and one times to let him in and out of the house.  But that dog became a sort of salvation for our family.

To imagine how our boys' lives changed when we came to Mekele, you have to remember that we yanked them from every single routine that had structured their lives for years:  School, soccer, friends, youth group, the NFL, Chipotle - all gone with the decision their parents made to bring them not just to Ethiopia, but to a relative frontier town in Ethiopia.  There is no one their age in this town that even remotely shares their day-to-day background.  Sure, they play soccer sometimes with the very kind neighborhood boys, and they have a good time playing with the kids at ORE, but otherwise, their friendships have been distilled to include just them.  The three of them.  And their dog.  Our dog. 

Our dog, who loves to play fetch so much that if you don't bring him his toy, he'll find a papaya branch and bring that to you, or his blanket, or a stone; anything that you'll toss for him so he can run and bring it back to you.  Our dog who greets us so heartily every single time we walk back in our gate that we stand there and laugh at him spinning in circles as if to take us all in at the same time.  Our dog who made the boys feel normal after hearing the constant calls of "Ferenji, Ferenji" - which we're always told is never meant to be an insult, but which at best sounds to me like "Different!  Different!"  These cries follow the boys still; every single day.  For these boys, Teddy was a bright spot in their day and hearing their laughter as they played with him made us feel less guilty about uprooting them.

So that's A.  The dog starts to mean something to you that's hard to describe; a bonding agent between you and your kids, a presence in your lives that is relentlessly playful and silly - even when you feel different, lonely, and homesick.

As for B (where we live), Teddy is an amazing guard dog.  Plain and simple.  He's an exceptionally nervous dog, barks at anything that moves outside the gate, knows strangers who might be out there from people that regularly visit, and is so tightly wired that he barks at beetles and pieces of paper floating by on a breeze.  These are great traits for a guard dog.  And although Mekele is said to be safe, we know people who've had their homes burglarized, including one family whose home was invaded as they slept.  We live on the edge of a neighborhood that overlooks nothing but scrubby trees and the hyenas that come out at night.  We are fully exposed to anyone and anything, and we are - as we're constantly reminded - mostly Ferenjis; we're known, and are therefore easy targets.  If it weren't for Teddy, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night. 

So, the first time he bit Micah, we were horrified.  Mark and I took him to a hospital here and were blown away both by the insanity of the place, and by the ability of the staff to navigate it calmly and cleanly.  Micah had his wounds (two puncture marks on his forearm and a cut on his shoulder) cleaned in the same room as someone who seemed to be having a heart attack, a woman with acute appendicitis, and a man in agony having his ingrown toe nails removed.  There was a lot of moaning, bewildered looking family members, old people who were sick and had no one with them.  Since Teddy had been vaccinated, the doctor gave Micah a tetanus booster after cleaning him up, and sent us on our way so she could figure out what to do with the chaos going on around her.  We left that hospital and thought, "Thank God we never have to go through that again."

Teddy would have to die, that was clear.  I didn't know how, but he would have to go.  Except for A.  A meant that Micah was terrified of him, and yet was even more terrified that we would put him down.  Eli and Daniel were silent and brooding about it all.  It was five months ago.  We still had seven months to go in Mekele.  I hesitated.  What would it be like to not hear the boys laughing outside anymore?  And what about B - what about security? 

We went over and over what happened, and did what I could not ever imagine us doing.  We justified the bite.  It happened like this.  We'd slaughtered a sheep and had given Teddy the head.  Teddy had been hunkered down with it for a while, with Micah chilling nearby.  Micah came over to pet him and Teddy lunged.  Protective.  That's what dogs are, especially German Shepherds.  Of course, we thought.  That was bound to happen.  Don't get between a dog and his bone, he's young, he'll learn, Micah needs to appreciate dog mentality...you get the idea.  We justified it, and we did exactly what my friend's ex-partner wanted to do with her dog.  We gave Teddy a second chance. Micah adjusted quickly and the two became fast friends again.

So...the second time Teddy bit Micah....well.  That was three days ago.  We'd all recovered from the first bite and Teddy had again become the apple of our eye.  Laughter filled our compound, and we felt safe all the time.  So when our landlord came to visit three days ago and Mark and I were outside the gate with him, Teddy naturally wanted to know what was going on.  He ran to the gate and Micah - who's horrified that he'll get out and bite someone else (because, ahem, that did happen once when the gate was left ajar and he saw a kid running from him, then nipped his calf before Micah caught him and dragged him back inside the gate) grabbed him from behind.  Teddy - being single-minded and nervous by nature - jumped up and bit Micah.  This time, on his face.  His jaw, to be precise.  He also left tooth marks on his belly and neck. 

We ran inside and Mark disciplined the dog with - shall we say - great passion. I took one look at the flap of skin hanging off my son's jaw, and commenced to bawling.  Micah kept asking, "Is it bad?  Is it bad?" and I just kept crying.  Yes, it was bad.  But I was crying because I didn't know what to do.  Didn't know where to take him, didn't know who would repair that awful cut, didn't know what to do with Teddy because I didn't have a gun and couldn't take him out to the scrubby trees and put him down humanely with a single shot.  I was overwhelmed and helpless, as I've been many times this year.  But this time, my kid's cheek was open and a flap of skin was hanging down his jaw like a shirt collar.  His dad and I'd made that possible. 

Sarah and Bill, friends who live here, came and took us to the major hospital in town. It was a bigger and more chaotic version of the first hospital we'd taken Micah to.  In a sickening replay of earlier events, we filled out a form, got him examined, received a prescription, were sent to the pharmacy to buy everything needed to treat him, and handed it to the doc.  Yes, you literally have to buy saline solution, syringes, gauze, gloves, tetanus vaccines, and anything else deemed necessary for your own treatment before you can be treated.  All around us were villagers who'd brought their desperately sick little babies, people sitting on mattresses in the hall, heads in their hands.  The sounds of crying babies, the looks of their exhausted mothers, the young doctors handling it all with calm and grace - it made me look at Micah's wound and feel grateful that it wasn't more serious. 

Our regular Sunday group, minus the Patterson family (who'd agreed to temporarily keep Teddy
before we came and took him off their hands).  Many of these
folks helped us out on bite night, and have helped out many times before.
front row: Elizabeth, Marta, Carol, Kristi, Sarah, Micah, Jake.
back row: Bill, Mark, Eli, Daniel, Thomas (visiting from UK), baby Rowena, Greg, EJ, John.

But.  I knew it would scar.  I knew it, and there was nothing I could do about it.  Bill called a doctor friend in Addis and he talked us through what usually happens with dog bites, stressed the importance of cleaning it thoroughly, and said often they don't close the wound immediately.  He was extremely helpful, but ultimately, he was in Addis, and we were in this crazy ER with docs who'd pulled the short straw because it was a holiday. 

At some point, an intern told me that Micah had to be seen by a maxillofacial specialist for the stitches.  She pointed to a central area of the ER, and I assumed that was where the specialist would see us.  But it was an ER doc who tended to us, and on his instructions, I held the bag of saline for him and wet some gauze with it so he could clean the wound.  He kept reminding me ("Don't touch me, don't touch me!") not to let the dripping needle of saline touch any part of him.  Such was the sterile technique of the ER. No face masks on anyone, all kinds of stains on the floor, lots of people standing around looking at this Ferenji kid with his skin hanging down his jaw.  Craziness. 

So when the same ER doc pushed some lidocaine into Micah's cheek and hurriedly pulled out a curved little needle and some absorbable thread,  I saw what was coming.  I gently leaned towards him and asked "Are you the maxillofacial specialist?" And he was already pulling Micah's cheek together with the curved needle.  He calmly said, "No.  I am the ER doctor on call."  So then I stood back and thought, "Okay.  This is what you get.  You came here.  You got the dog.  You kept the dog. So this is what you get."  And we just watched him do the best job he could, pulling Micah back together again.

Carol, a nurse friend, has told us that when we're back in the States, a plastic surgeon can fix the scar.  My friend Zeb in Addis talked to a couple of docs who saw the pictures I sent them of the stitch job and said basically "small wound, leave it be."

And it is a smallish wound.  But it's ugly.  Not because it's nasty looking, but because I see it and am reminded of the risks we've exposed our kids to this year.  I jokingly have told Mark again and again, "It's the year of living dangerously." Maybe, but looking at Micah's bruised face reminds me that the greatest price has been paid by our kids.

The boys and a younger Teddy

But life goes on in weird and surreal ways.  The very next morning, we performed in a martial arts show, of all things.  Readers of this blog may recall that we've hired a personal trainer. He is a Tae Kwon Do black belt whose dedication to the Ariana Grande song "Break Free" knows absolutely no bounds; it plays on a loop for an hour straight every single workout session.  He scheduled a performance for the kids of ORE featuring our family and Sandra (Swiss volunteer).  He asked us to wear red t-shirts.  When we got there, he handed us a roll of gauze and told us to make headbands. 

So there we were, Micah's face looking like he fought a lion, all of us sleep-deprived and anxious, standing in a straight line in front of the kids and staff of ORE with gauze tied around our heads, and Ariana declaring over the speaker, "This is the part where I say I don't wanna..."   To make matters worse, our trainer threw in an unexpected move and told us to run and leap into two somersaults in a row, each ending in classic martial arts fight stance and the battle cry "KYAH!"  If you don't think that's a big deal, go out and do a somersault right now, and then imagine you're forty-six and haven't done one in thirty-six years.  Needless to say, my "KYAH!" was more like "KY-OW!"  But the kids all clapped. 

Sadly, I don't have any pics of our show, but a soccer game was played
immediately after.  ORE believes the best way
to bid volunteers farewell is to form a staff/student team (yellow)
and decimate a team of volunteers (red). This was Sandra's last day after
a five month stint at ORE.  Our trainer, Teame, crouches between Daniel and Sandra
in the front row, hand on heart.

We did our show and it made Micah happy to be there and active.  And it made me think of the bravery of our boys as they went along with the program, kicking and punching in beginner style for an audience of kids they were certain would make fun of them afterwards.  Teame, a born-again Christian, was careful to ask Micah, "Are you okay, Brother Micah?"  Brother Micah was okay.

So what do we do with Teddy?  Here's how I imagine conversations going in the States: 
Me:  I think we have to keep Teddy.  We're leaving in less than two months.  We need the security.  Even Micah wants him to stay.
Friend in America:  I'm sorry, but I'm looking up Mekele Child Protective Services.

Here's how it goes here:
Me: We're going to keep Teddy until we leave, then we'll give him to an Ethiopian family who still wants him.
Americans in Ethiopia: Good.  So glad you don't have to deal with finding a way to put him down.  Micah will be fine, keep your eye on him.

Or:

Me: We have to kill that dog.
Ethiopian friends: Why????  I'll take him!

So...the dog stays.  I know, I know.  But if I told you how friends here have had to put their pets down (think strychnine for a cancer ridden dog, or holding a kitten with a broken neck under water), then you would understand that putting this guy through that when he was the one who brought laughter back to my boys would be really, really tough.  And you would look at Micah's nicely healing scar, the big valley outside where anyone can hide at night, and the dwindling days on our "year away" calendar, and you might make the same decision.  Anyway, our friend Jake has offered to take Teddy for the remainder of the time and swap him with his old dog, Trisca.  Just so that Micah can feel safe, and the rest of us can too.  Isn't that something?

The third time Teddy bit Micah....just kidding.  Too soon?

ps:

Hazal's completely boring now and her goody-goody sister Kansu is now the crazy one, having lost her unborn baby in a car accident and then - being from a filthy rich family - allowed her mother to buy a baby off a poor family so she wouldn't feel so bad.

More importantly, Mark and I - with the help of the incredible ORE staff - took the kids who'd performed well in their schools this year on a field trip to Wukro museum an hour away, and to an ancient rock church that dates back 1664 years.  Daniel came along, and a good time was had by all.

Me'areg, tour guide, explains some of the exhibits at Wukro Museum - a
joint venture of the Tigray Regional Government and The German Society

We carried lunch with us.  A huge cauldron of injera fir fir, and eighty egg sandwiches
prepared by ORE staff early in the morning.
These girls were chosen as part of the lunch committee (left to right, Rishan,
Girmanesh, Elam, Zenebu, and chaperone Susanne)

The museum staff stood by in awe as our students - without being asked -
found brooms, swept up their lunch mess, and washed up all the dishes.

Outside the ancient Wukro Chirkos