Before I get into the story of the devil dog who maimed my Maggie Moo, let me say this…

I miss American cable companies.

Honestly.

I do.

Why?…Why do I miss that bastion of monopolistic ‘we’ll be out between 12 & 5pm’ mentality?

Because at least I can talk to them.

Here in Korea our cable TV & cable internet come as part of the lease agreement.

So whenever anything goes wonky, instead of getting routed to the call center in Bombay (since they’ve outsourced all those American jobs)…“hhhhHello, mai name ees Bub”

I call our real estate agent. She in turn calls the cable company.

And we sit & wait for the cable company to finally fix it.

It’s frustrating & I can’t imagine she enjoys it that much either.

But we’re back up….again. So back to the story at hand.

We live in a duplex. The fence that runs between our side of the house & the neighbors side of the house is perfectly see-through. It’s never been a problem before. Moo met & played with their two small dogs when we first arrived last year & everyone did just fine. Of course we quickly learned that Paco – the Chihuahua from Hell – was unbalanced. He had a Napoleon complex the likes of which I’ve never seen & he’s an aggressive barker. A non-stop, aggressive barker at anything over 12 inches high. It didn’t matter to him that he had just played with Maggie 10 minutes before, he would bark his head off, in full attack mode.

At the time you could see Maggie laugh it off…as if to say, “You’re a funny little dog. What’s your problem?” And over time, anytime the two of them were both out she would make a game of running up & down the fence line just to set him off. Fast forward to about a month ago when Maggie & Libby were staking their claim for top dog, and Maggie was at her breaking point. She just couldn’t stomach another dog telling her what to do & so when she finally put Libby in her place (and Libby finally got the hint), Moo-Moo was on edge.

And the next afternoon Paco came out while we were in the backyard. As always – barking his head off in full attack mode – and Moo had had enough. In a split-second she went from leisurely walking up to the fence (as usual) to full-on “you-better-back-your-little-Chihuahua-butt-up” mode as she got down to his level. I don’t have any pictures of it – obviously, I was too busy pulling her away from the fence & back into the house. Completely shocked that she would go off on Paco like that – so far away from her character.

But the sound of it would be more frightening than any picture could do justice. Paco’s high-pitched, screeching bark and Moo-Moo’s deep-barreled booming bark (rarely ever used) combined together to form the complete sound of utter dog-fight terror. Staying calm & without a word, I grabbed her collar, pulled her in the house & immediately disciplined her.

And that’s when I saw it…

…her face, tore-up & bleeding.

There wasn’t a scratch anywhere on Paco. The fencing is too narrowly spaced for Maggie to get a tongue through there - let alone a paw. That’s not what she was trying to do anyway. She just had her face completely down on the ground, barking away at him. But it was big enough for Paco to get his paws & little mouth through.

That’s when it hit me…

…their little piss-ant of a David, Paco, was beating up my gentle Goliath. And no one but me would feel sorry for Goliath. Everyone would root for the literal underdog.

So I kept my mouth shut, told Eric of course, but didn’t say a word to the neighbors – knowing that from here forward I would be outside whenever Maggie was outside in order to keep them apart. And soon as the weather got warmer the neighbors began to leave their patio door open for the dogs to go out whenever they pleased while they were gone – which is always & part of the reason why Paco’s so unbalanced in the first place.

(I’ve been trying to get him barking on video so you’ll better understand the issue. But it’s been raining non-stop for the past 2 and a half days and none of the dogs want out.)

Since then there have been 2 or 3 other times that this has happened between Moo & Paco – no matter how vigilant I am about checking the yard before letting her out with me. We’ll be out, alone – and just as soon as I feel comfortable that their dogs are in the house & let her off the leash - he’ll run out, barking at her again & sparking this anger in her. The kicker is that she doesn’t do this with any other dog. Not even the territorial new dog that lives along our walk. Doesn’t phase her a bit. It’s just Paco that’s triggering her.

So one night I finally told the neighbors. I assured them that I wasn’t letting Maggie out in the yard on her own anymore & that I would keep this from happening again. They both love Maggie, both know how gentle she is & were shocked to hear about it. And now we’re trapped in our own house – unable to enjoy the yard because their dogs might come out.

The irony to all this is that one Saturday the neighbors & I tried slowly re-introducing Maggie & Paco. I had Maggie on the leash on our side and the neighbor was out with Paco continually telling him to be quiet anytime he tried to start up. And it worked.

Moo-Moo was fine. She could’ve cared less about Paco. I even let her off the leash & she didn’t flinch. For a while I thought we had solved the problem. Until the next afternoon when we were out again & Paco came out barking. With no one there to tell him to stop, he kept going & you could see Maggie begin to get riled up – even though I was holding onto her. So back in the house we went before she could escalate.

And where…we have stayed since….miserably…exiled from the backyard.