Jerrod Balzer

For those who don’t know, we have two dogs that had both been abused in the past. They were from no-kill shelters but were scheduled to be put down, nonetheless, because they were considered un-adoptable by the powers-that-be. It’s mostly because they couldn’t trust anyone due to prior treatment.

Well, when our German Shepherd, Bear, passed away several years ago, we wanted to honor his death by rescuing a dog. The closest local dog we could find to a GS was a GS/Border Collie mix named Nash, one of the dogs described above. He took to us well, to the shelter’s surprise, so we took him home. Here he is:

We were doing so well with him that six months later, they asked to give us a similar case, a terrier mix named Opal, and we agreed. We love ‘em both.

Now, Nash is lovable and timid as he can be. Pat him on the butt and he’ll be your friend for life. But he can be a fierce watch dog if caught by surprise, and unfortunately, there are two things that set Nash off: silver hair and tool belts. I wonder if they represent whomever used to abuse him, and they unleash some sort of trigger for him similar to PTSD.

On Monday, our favorite guy for working on heater-related stuff came over to replace our water heater. He knocked on our door and Robin said “Come in!” without thinking about needing to put up the dogs first. It was one of those automatic things we all do on occasion. So he stepped in and Nash had him pinned to the wall.

I stepped up and said, “Take your tool belt off.” See, this happened once before and it worked. Well, Nash is smart and he didn’t fall for it this time. He stayed his ground. So I grabbed him by the collar while the guy stepped back out the door, and I try to get him to go to another room so I could shut him in where everyone would be safe. He was like a rock – wouldn’t budge. I put my legs against his butt and shuffled to the next room, pushing him along. He growled a little but moved.

When we reached the room, I let go and he gave me a mean look. Things seem okay until I went to close the door. That’s when he lost it and lashed at me three times, biting hard. A tooth made a deep hole in my right wrist and mangled it up pretty good. It was all in the meat, though, no arteries or tendons were damaged and it’s healing okay. He also chipped the hell out of my right thumb nail – no big deal – and he bruised/ripped my left ring finger on the top and bottom.

While it was happening, I smacked him on the nose until he stopped. Unless he’s going for my throat or crotch or something, I’m won’t kick or punch my own dog or whatever, especially knowing that is the sort of treatment that most likely did this to him in the first place.

Anyway, I got the door closed on him, and not a minute later opened it again. He was immediately trying to lick my wounds and trying to make things right. He knew that he’d done something horribly wrong and lost control. I couldn’t be angry at him. I’d be happier to get my hands on whoever mistreated him. That, and I’d rather I was bitten than the heater guy.

So I’m healing, not typing so much since my wrist rests right on the worst wound. And as timing would have it, Nash and Opal got their rabies shots today, lol! Good thing because there’s no telling what Nash could get from me!