Several Christmases ago, my father had moved into a new apartment and I came down from college to help him set up his place for the holidays.  He had gone shopping at the local discount stores, and his enthusiasm resulted in a substantial pile of holiday decorations that could have satisfied several households over.  One of his proud finds was a collection of wooden Christmas ornaments with the declaration of being “hand made!!” emblazoned on the packaging.

Our newly procured tree stood at a proud lean to the right by a twenty degree pitch (at my guess).  I tore open the genuine hand-made(!!!) wooden ornaments and began to free each little creature from its tight plastic packaging. It occurred to me that these must have been hand made in Chernobyl, for each creature I liberated had some crazy disfigurement that caused me to burst out laughing. First the bear with 5 arms.  Then the boy with the melted face. A dog with its ears growing out of the back of its neck.   And then, the coup de gras.  A little angel with a blown out pupil, yellow ponytails frozen as if in mid electrocution and a third arm thrown in for fun.

“Look, Dad! It’s a little crack-baby angel!”

That night, Crack Baby Angel struck us in such a way that we laughed until tears streamed down our faces. I made up crazy stories about the little angel’s adventures being born a crack baby, and I ended each one by saying, “Crack babies need love too!”

After my dad passed away, I got a dog. I had wanted a French Bulldog for so long and the time finally came where I could live somewhere and have a pet. The day I brought Beau home, I held him in my arms like a baby, petting him until my arms ached. He was solid black with a white patch on his chest and a little white racing stripe between his eyes and down his wrinkly nose. As I pet his little head, he met my eyes and didn’t look away.  A sign, I learned from watching an absurd amount of Animal Planet, of an animal being strong-willed.

“Oh you little stinker, are going to keep me on my toes, aren’t you.”

From the very beginning he challenged me often. But we continued our training and he learned fast. He brought so much joy to my life with his silly antics and his playful little nature.

He never did well with change, though. The first time he bit me was when we were in a parking lot of a gas station in San Diego. He wouldn’t drop a stick he was chewing on and I tried to take it away from him. He was still a puppy and the bite didn’t hurt too much, but it was the first time I had ever been bitten by dog, let alone my own dog. It was also the first time the idea really settled into my brain that there might be something wrong with him. But Beau was my little boy, my four legged son, and I wasn’t giving up on him. He was just a crack baby who needs love too.

It started to become a joke that we knew who all my closest friends were because they had been bitten by my dog at some point. But he was my little boy, so I kept him away from everyone but me. I knew his triggers, I knew what to look for when he turned, I knew what to expect. I could handle this. I wasn’t giving up on him.

His attacks were mostly short-lived. He’d lunge, sink his teeth in, perhaps lunge again two or three more times. Then he’d suddenly snap out of it and look at you with wide eyes as if to say, “Oh shit, what just happened?” He’d then slink away from you in a self-imposed time-out and be sure to suck up the next day.

Last week I was preparing to leave for a trip. Like most dogs, he knows that when the big red suitcase is out, Mommy is going away. He refused to eat his food, opting instead to stand protectively over his dish and growl at me whenever I got near. I corrected him and gave him the command to eat his food. He growled louder. I corrected again and he lunged.

He managed to rip both shoes from my feet and I had to jump up on the kitchen counter to get away from him. He kept coming. Something had completely disconnected in his brain and my dog was no longer there. Just this crazed monster who wanted to kill me who had suddenly possessed my little boy’s body.

Being attacked like that does strange things to me. The sudden adrenaline dump makes me nauseous, jittery and dazed. I became disconnected from myself and jump down from the counter, walking out of the kitchen on legs I no longer felt anymore. I walked to the bathroom where I closed the door tightly behind me and began to clean up the area on my foot where one of his teeth tore my skin.

At times like these, it’s easy to see what needs to be done. But when you think about the other 364 days out of the year where he is a sweet, loving little dog, the answer no longer seems appealing. He has something wrong with him, but I love him. He’s my little crack baby. Crack babies need love too.

Time and again dogs make headlines by mauling some poor person who is in the wrong place at the wrong time. We are so quick to judge the owners, demand “How could they let this happen, why didn’t they destroy the animal in the first place!”  And here I am, one of those owners who knowingly has an animal who attacks viciously. I own a dog who is a potential headline. I own a dog who has only gotten worse.

My mind keeps replaying the scene from Tropic Thunder where Jack Black’s character is running through the jungle in his underwear, yelling, “Don’t judge me!!!” in a desperate attempt to get to the barn holding the heroin he is addicted to. Here I am, the fool running in their underwear through the jungle. It has become a well-worn path.

Beau’s my little boy. When I think of him, I think of those 364 days of good.

He lays at my feet now. I can hear him snoring softly. He’s my little boy. He’s my crack baby.

And I love him.