Mr. Write's Page

My dog Paco is a border collie, and he is a gentle and loving animal. You could establish a religion on his personal qualities.

Paco is the Gandhi of canines. He loves all creatures, great and small. He never attacks other animals, only herds them.

If another dog goes territorial on him, Paco diffuses the situation by showing no aggression whatsoever. He has never been in a fight.

But Paco has one blemish on his record: he once bit my granddaughter Maddie.

It happened in the summer of 2006, when Maddie was an energetic two-year-old. I was babysitting for the afternoon at her place.

Maddie and Paco were accustomed to being around each other. She thought of him as an entertaining curiosity. He was benign and polite around her, although it was clear he was uncomfortable with the decibel level.

That afternoon, Maddie was quietly munching Cheerios and watching SpongeBob SquarePants on television. Paco, taking advantage of a break in the usual bedlam that Maddie represented, was asleep in front of the couch at my feet.

At a commercial break, Maddie set aside her bowl of Cheerios, got up, and came toward me.

Suddenly, she let out a piercing scream, broke into a gallop, and launched herself into the air.

Still screaming, she landed with an oomph squarely on top of the sleeping, unsuspecting Paco.

Paco awoke in a panic and leapt up, tossing Maddie into the air. In the same instant, he whirled around in the direction of whatever had landed on him.

Maybe he bit Maddie on purpose. Maybe his teeth simply grazed her forehead in the frenzy of the moment. I’ll never know.

But two seconds later, Maddie was sitting on the floor wailing, and Paco had retreated to another room.

“Paco bit me!” Maddie yelled between sobs. “Paco bit me!”

I scooped her up to comfort her. On her left temple was a single red spot the size of a grain of rice. His tooth didn’t break the skin, but it was going to leave a mark.

Maddie continued to tell me in disbelief that Paco had bit her. She sat curled up in my lap, clutching Buddy (her ever-present stuffed BFF) and sucking her thumb. Slowly, the whimpering subsided.

I touched her forehead near the tooth mark. “Does it hurt?” I asked.

“Yes. Paco bit me. Paco is a bad dog.”

“Oh, I think Paco was just scared,” I said. “He was asleep, and you startled him. He wouldn’t hurt you on purpose.”

We sat there quietly for a minute, rocking back and forth. Maddie was collecting herself, and I was trying to get my head around the event.

The thing was, my dog just bit my granddaughter. In her own house. Her parents were going to be horrified. And angry.

They might banish Paco from Maddie’s presence forever. They might do the same to me.

Poor Maddie, who was always so comfortable around Paco — would she develop a fear of dogs?

Poor Paco, who was always so tolerant of Maddie — would he strike again?

On all counts, down the line, I was wrong.

Dustin and Leslie were surprised, but not overly upset. They considered the incident to be an aberration, not likely to happen again.

As for Maddie, she was totally untraumatized. By the end of the afternoon, she was back to petting and hugging Paco as if nothing had happened.

Paco, he seemed unaffected, too.

Of us all, I was the most distressed.

Later that week, Paco had an appointment for his annual physical. I told the vet about the unpleasantness that had occurred.

“What do you think?” I asked. “Do I need to enroll Paco in an obedience class or something?”

“It wasn’t the dog who needed to learn a lesson,” said the vet.

“Your granddaughter found out what happens when you jump on top of a sleeping dog,” he said.  “I guarantee she’ll never do it again.

“Case closed. Forget about it.”

Easy for him to say.

"No treats for you!" -- Paco and Maddie a few weeks later, back to normal.