[taken 10 days after the bite; read pt 1, pt 2 or pt 3]

She had bit me – hard.

The image above doesn’t begin to show what it looked like soon after it all happened. The entire ring on my arm was such a dark purple it was almost black.

I had thought about taking a picture at the time – but truthfully…and as bad as it sounds…I didn’t want the photographic evidence.

I was embarrassed.

My dog. The dog I had raised from day one. The dog I had worked & worked with for all of the 5 months we owned her…bit me.

I was a failure.

(At least that was the prevailing thought as all this started to unravel.)

Looking back at everything today, I think denial must be the first sign of responsibility.

While intellectually you’re able to recognize the seriousness of the situation, your heart just isn’t ready to accept it yet. So Eric & I started throwing around all kinds of ‘what if’s?’

“What if we tried” this…“What if we tried” that.

We explored every option – but inevitably, they all led back to the same conclusion.

Libby had become vicious.

Keeping her – even if we were on-guard 100% of the time, never took our eyes off her & kept a muzzle on her - it was too risky.

What if she got out of the backyard again & went after the farmer? What if she slipped out the front door one day & went after a child?

If she could bite me – her handler, what would she do to someone else?

And if you really want to get cold about the whole thing, what if something like that really did happen? We’d be legally responsible. We’d be financially responsible and the Army could possibly discipline Eric.

Through tears & heartache we agreed to take her to the Osan Vet Clinic on Saturday.

We knew we’d have to disclose her violent nature – knew there’d be no way she could be considered adoptable.

And in a last ditch effort to hold onto denial, we began to wonder if the vet clinic worked with a Korean group that could or would place agressive Jindos like her.

She could be some farmer’s watchdog – tied up outside like every other Jindo around here, right?

At least she could live out her life – the dog was only 7 months old.

7 months old!

Not even close to adulthood – and definitely not finished growing.

She would get bigger – become more powerful – become more agressive.

We had to do the responsible thing…no matter how much it hurt.

The problem was the clinic isn’t open on Saturdays & we had found out too late. We’d have to keep her through the weekend, all through to the next Friday when Eric had time off work.

It just wasn’t a good time for him to slip out early and there was no way I was doing this alone.

We just had to get through another 6 days – 6 days of crossing our fingers that there’d be no more incidents.

I wish I could tell you we made it through those 6 days.

But we didn’t.

[read what happened next]