Little Bullies, Big Babies, and the Story of How I'm Not Dead Yet

Those of you who spent much time on the previous incarnation of Dust in a Sunbeam might remember Robin. She was Max Bear's girlfriend, the sweetest  little Red Devil (aka Red Nose Pit Bull Terrier) in the world. Unfortunately, Robin no longer lives next door (she moved to Memphis to be with her grandma), but four of her seven puppies remained. It turns out, the Baby Daddy was Zeke, the evil pit who lives behind us and who has attacked Bruno twice now. He's a fence jumper.

The puppies are, I hate to say it, ferocious, a fact that my neighbor attributes to their raping daddy, but which I attribute to the fact that 1) no one every spends any time with them and B) the runt of the litter remained with them, and the other three have gotten a taste for blood in their constant attacks on the little guy. It's been an ongoing source of conflict with the neighbors, who just throw up their hands and say, "We don't know how to control them!" And it's been a constant source of stress for Bruno, who goes into howling, screaming, distressed running fits every time they fight.

This week, the conflict came to an ultimate head. Bruno and I set out for our morning walk, and about a half-block away from the house, two of the puppies (they're about six months old now) came running out of nowhere and viciously attacked Bruno like a couple of little velocipuppies. One grabbed his ear and nearly bit a hole straight through it. The other attacked his, umm... *points down* sensitive bits. And Bruno wouldn't fight back. He tried his best to get away, but given that they're puppies, he wouldn't actually bite back. (His selective aggression with other canines confuses me, but that's another blog post altogether).

The one who was chomping on his, umm... *points down* business, I kicked as firmly as I could without doing any damage. He flew about four feet, and his feet were already scampering before he hit the ground for his return attack. What finally broke it up was a crazy neighbor running up next to us and FIRING A GORRAM PISTOL into the air. The puppies scattered. Bruno literally shit on the sidewalk. And as soon as I could speak again I told her where the puppies live so she could go get someone to wrangle them back home. She also called Animal Control.

I try to keep peaceful relations with my neighbors, since I'm the only white guy on the block (my only other white neighbhor is the Dwarf across the street -- Little Fat Kid That Max Hated's mom -- and everyone is kinda scared of me (they call me Renegade. Seriously, how long has it been since that show went off the air?). But when your kid attacks my kid's junk, I'm gonna raise some hell, so hell was raised, and it was decided that two of the puppies would go to a new home (the home of someone who actually wants them, and promises to raise them right), and two went to the Humane Society (again, the good one, the real one, not the evil goatfuckers at the Humane Society of the United States). I hope they'll get the upbringing they need there. It's a no-kill shelter with a great education program, so there's hope. And I hope they find a good home. But I'm so glad they're gone. And so is Bruno.

What's most messed up about the whole situation is that when I explained how viciously they attacked Bruno, all I got was eye-rolling. From my neighbors. From the police detective who came to my house to get my statement. Everyone looked at the puppies, looked at all seventy pounds of gargantuan-headed, monstrously jawed Bruno, and you could tell it was all they could do not to laugh. That pisses me off. But what can you do?

In other Bruno news, I completely forgot to tell you guys that he saved my life! No, I don't mean metaphorically. I mean he actually and truly saved me from literally dying to death.

As I said in my last update, I've been doing a very lot of yard work since Bruno came into my life. And for me, doing yard work is always preceded by taking copious amounts of allergy medication, since I'm allergic to the Earth and pretty much everything contained upon it. A couple of Saturdays ago, though, I forgot, and was chopping down some bamboo shoots when alovasudden I stopped breathing.

I was already winded from swinging an ax, so the sudden loss of oxygen intake hit me quickly. I crumpled, and as my vision faded to black -- in what was almost certainly seconds, but felt like hours -- I saw Bruno recognize that Something Was Wrong. He came and nudged me playfully, I guess testing to see if I was joking around, and when he decided I wasn't, his eyes bugged out, kinda like this ------> but with a look of dismay, not joy.

The last thing I saw before I lost consciousness completely was him running into the house to get alert the missus, and the last thing I heard was a weird mix of barking and downright human-sounding screaming.

Needless to say, I didn't all-the-way die.Sweet baby didn't leave my side for the rest of the day, though. He rested his gigantic cranium on my lap, and wouldn't hardly take his eyes off of mine, and when we finally crawled into bed that night, it took forever to get to sleep because he kept checking on me to make sure I was breathing. I hate the word "blessing" so much, but without resorting to spooky kumbaya words, I'm at a loss for what else to call him.