Write On

I’m thinking about changing the name of my house from Casa di Fausone to Animal Planet. I wonder if they’d sue me?

I have so many animal updates, snafus and fiascos to report that I don’t know where to begin. It involves llamas, baby cows, service dogs, pit bulls, and at least one jackass.

I got a call from Braxton the foster pibble’s forever home that he’d chased a llama thus, they did not want him anymore. So much for forever. That made me sick but also cheerful that I’d insisted they return him to me at once should circumstances change, which they did. Braxton arrived back on my doorstep no worse for wear. I worked so hard on that placement spending hour after hour with these people, writing three pages of notes, doing the home check, the references! Baby boy pit bull is back. I do not like llamas.

My housekeeper comes on Friday. She sees my two pibbles and in her thick Spanish accent she looked at me with a fair measure of disgust and said, “Balerie, jew have TWO PEETBULLS now? Jew put diamond on your door and nobody come here. Pffffft.”

Moving on to Saturday, I went to the Paws for Love gala. Stella was invited to attend also, as the breed ambassador pit bull. We were supposed to go up on stage and tell the crowd about how Paws for Love helps pits and other rescue dogs. Of course Braxton had to come too and Stella was on her best behavior. There were loads of other dogs there and everyone got along famously. Until a service dog in attendance, complete with yellow vest, growled at Braxton. That my friends, is a big mistake. You can take the pit bull out of the ghetto, but you can’t take the ghetto out of the pit bull.

Stella came out of her abusive home starving, full of fleas, worms, disease, bad habits, malaise, food aggressive, toy aggressive, territorial and not housebroken. In short, she was a savage. Thanks to a year of rehab and hours of training with kindness she is a polite, happy, obedience trained, peaceful dog who shares. We successfully pass millions of dogs on our walks, she is non-reactive to cats and she loves people. What she doesn’t love is other dogs aggressing towards her. Or, her beloved Braxton.

The minute the service dog snarled at Braxton, Stella curled her lip up over her nose quivering like a grenade that just got it’s pin pulled. Stella took a step towards the idiot and showed him all her teeth. FYI: She has more teeth than a hammerhead shark. I yanked her back and she looked at me in total shock. “ NO” I said sternly as she shook her head in disbelief as if to say “OK my mom won’t let me kick your ass but I’ll meet you around back you vest wearing mofo.”

I am the only person on earth who could narrowly avert having my breed ambassador pibble bust the head of a dog in service to the handicapped at an animal rescue function.

Sunday I walked my dogs along the trail and the Animal Control truck was parked in the road. I worried they may be searching for a dog so I looked around to see if I could spot anything moving. Just then a big calf ran past us, mooing up a storm, with two Animal Control officers in hot pursuit. If you’ve never witnessed two grown men running after a cow in the middle of suburbia, I highly recommend it.

My pitbulls cried in fear and we had to go home.

That’s today’s episode of Animal Planet. Be careful out there.

 

www.valeriefausone.com