Sunday:

I swear to god, if I didn’t like animals so da** much we’d be dropping him off at the shelter. I can see that no average person would be able to handle him - except by just keeping him locked in his crate all day. I am never taking him out again, I told bf - luckily I only half meant it.

Baseball. My bf plays baseball. I haven’t been going to his games, mainly because of Zeeke. This morning I decided I’d take him with us.

First of all, he’s okay for short car rides. After a while though, he starts getting anxious. Whining, barking, turning in circles… and since he’s seatbelted in, he gets all wrapped up in everything. Completely. And then of course he gets upset. By the time we got to the park he was pretty bad.

We let him out, I put him on the long rope. Remember, I got a 50 foot rope for him - tied a caribiner to the end, a big hefty thing that will NOT break, and snapped it to his collar. First of all, he dragged me all over he**, saying “hi” to everyone (practically mauling them by jumping on them). He pooped THREE times within the first ten minutes, all runny. I think it’s connected to the car ride anxiety/excitement. (And he had JUST gone poop before we left, too). My hands got ropeburn pretty quick from holding onto the end of the leash. People were staying well away from the “crazy dog”. I took him off where he was nowhere near people, tried to get him to play with his flying squirrel - no go.

In order to watch the game and keep him from shoving his nose up peoples’ crotches and jumping all over them, I tied him to the water fountain that was back about 30 feet. I kept the rope a bit shorter so he couldn’t get in peoples’ way, but it was still 30 feet. I played with him with the ball. Then I sat down a few feet away to watch the game. He had a bowl of water to drink from.

First of all, someone with 4 little boys showed up (all different ages, ranging from about 3 to 10). They obviously had NO idea how to act around dogs. Please please PLEASE teach your kids that if you see a dog DO NOT SCREAM AND RUN AWAY. Zeeke is not an aggressive dog, he just wants to play, and these little kids screaming and running had him very excited. He wanted to go play with them. Their dad told them to stay away from the dog because the dog was too big and would jump on them. So they started coming to the end of his leash, shrieking “Doggy! Doggy!” and then running away when he saw them. Great. I kept a VERY close eye on Zeeke the whole time, after a little while of this he started ignoring them. (THANK GOD.) He’d bark if they started barking (which they were also doing), but that was it. I had half a mind to just let him loose and let him run them down, then maybe they’d learn? Little #%@!s grrrrr. (Of course Zeeke is NOT allowed off-leash, but it was a nice little thought to picture the little brats being squashed into the ground, you know?)

Well after that he wanted to go join the ballgame. Everyone in uniform looked like daddy to him, so he’d bounce at the end of the rope. He got bad, chewed on it. I told him NO, he stopped. No visible damage. BUT. Oh yes yes, but. I’m watching the game, watching him out of the corner of my eye, he’s being good, I turn to glance at him again just to see him trot to the end of the rope. He leaned and then… POP the rope SNAPPED right near his collar - must have been where he was chewing on it. He goes walking over to a bush. I walk up to him, trying to stay calm as he hasn’t yet realized he’s not tied down. He keeps moving away from me. Then suddenly he realizes it and SWING off he goes headed for the other team. I yell at them to please help catch the dog, they made some attempts but it was usless, he just avoids everyone. Then he veers off towards the field right into the ballgame. I yell - and this is the first time in my LIFE that I have ever truly YELLED - “DEEENIIISSSSS!!!!” (My boyfriend’s name) He was shortstop. Took too yells, top of my lungs, before he looked up to see Zeeke barrelling down on him. He makes a very valiant tackle effort, but Zeeke slipped right out of his arms and kept on going. I got to watch several grown men chasing Zeeke around the field. Bf and I know full well that chasing doesn’t work, so we just waited. Zeeke came my way again and I plodded after, calling his name, trying to get him to sit. It was as if I didn’t even exist.

And then, he heads towards the side of the field. The field is fenced on that side, but you can’t really tell, and I wasn’t sure if it was fully fenced and I couldn’t see the fence underneath all the vegetation, but all I could see was that we’re at the bottom of a steep incline and at the top is the freaking hiway. That’s when I really started freaking out. I was calling Zeeke, he ran away from me… I’m getting more and more frantic trying to get him to come back this way, tried running away from him, nothing. He finally turned around on his own and went back into the ballgame. He runs up to Den, who points at him, tells him to SSIITTT! And… Zeeke does. Bf stepped up and quickly grabbed his collar and led him back to me, where I snapped on the big heavy leash.

THEN I started bawling. Bf hugged me, but I was just crying and shaking… I was so scared… getting loose at the house in the suburbs is one thing, but loose in some field beside a hiway? I’m still shaking.

He was mostly calm beside me until the game ended, but on the way home in the car he chewed on yet another seatbelt of the leased car.

I just don’t know what to do with him anymore. We can’t take him out of the house… he’s now snapped TWO leashes, one he snapped the metal buckle, the other he snapped a very hefty rope. Bf says now we’re only going to use chain… or those wire-core rope things. Watching him takes all of my energy and then some. I want him to be able to come with us when we go places, to be a part of our lives, but how can we if he’s like this? We can’t. I pray to god (and I don’t even believe in a god) that obedience class helps because I am just going to have a heart attack if this continues. I’ve contacted several trainers in the area, and one has a class starting in two weeks’ time - and she owns german shepherds. The other lady that had offered to get us caught up, haven’t heard from her this weekend and if we dont’ by tonight I’ll just move on. I don’t really feel like joining a class that’s already three weeks in, anyways.

Trust me, we’re going to do everything we can for this boy. He needs a fenced yard so badly, we’re going to put off all the house repairs until we have a fence, we made that decision today. The house wiring is very old and probably dangerous, but… well, it’ll just take so much money to tear down all the walls and repalce the wiring and walls and ceiling that we just can’t do both. And either fence or repairs, might take a few months because we just dont’ have a few thousand sitting around right now until his ex’s house gets sold.

Boyfriend is drawing me a hot bath, getting me candles and chocolates and a book to read… to try to de-stress me. I feel pretty traumatized after today.