Oogy The Dog Only a Family Could Love (13 page)

One evening several months after Oogy had joined our family, he and I were out for a stroll when we saw a young woman approaching us. She was power-walking and talking into a headset at the same time. As she drew closer, I heard her say, “Ma, here’s the dog I told you about, the one I’m afraid of?” I stopped. Oogy stood and looked at her. His tail wagged slowly back and forth. She approached us cautiously.

I said to the woman as she drew nearer, “It’s okay. He’s perfectly safe. I wouldn’t be keeping him here in front of you if that wasn’t the case.”

After a brief hesitation, the woman came over to Oogy. She held out one hand, and he sniffed it. Then he licked her.

“I am so afraid of your dog,” she said, “that I stopped jogging by your house.”

“There’s absolutely nothing to be afraid of,” I assured her. “He only barks at you because he wants contact with you.”

“He seems very nice,” she admitted, nodding.

“He’s more than very nice,” I told her.

She cupped her hand under Oogy’s muzzle. Then she knelt and, fascinated by the texture of his fur, began to stroke his head and shoulders. Oogy lifted his head and licked her face. She asked me what had happened to him, and I told her. By the time the encounter was over, the woman was kissing Oogy on the top of his head and massaging the muscles in his neck while he backed into her in appreciation.

Similar encounters happened on several occasions, and people’s hesitancy if not fear dissolved once they actually met Oogy.

There have also been times when we have been able to use Oogy’s intimidating appearance and apparently aggressive behavior to our advantage. Whenever there were strangers working in the neighborhood, I made it a point to let Oogy out of the house. “If someone is thinking of coming into our house,” I assured the boys when they were younger, “once they take a look at Oogy and hear him barking, they’re going to start thinking about looking for another house.” Once Oogy had joined the family, the boys lost any lingering sense of discomfort they might have had about being alone.

While, thankfully, I’ve never had occasion to test this theory, I have always felt that if Oogy sensed we were afraid or if he perceived some threat, he would immediately transform himself into a completely different animal from the one we have encountered in his life so far. Out and about or in the house, in the blackest of the night, I have never had any fear that someone will physically threaten us or do us harm. In my heart, there has been no doubt that the dog we adore and who kisses us incessantly could and would react instantly to protect us at all costs — that he would die for us rather than let us feel threatened or allow us to be hurt. Oogy is a guardian who, I am convinced, will do whatever needs to be done to save us from peril.

One summer day, we came into the house and discovered that a window and screen were wide open in the family room. Nothing had been taken or moved. None of us would have had any reason to open the screen, but just to make sure, I asked the boys if they had done it. They told me that they had not, and we concluded that someone had decided to force his way into the house through the window, had heard and/or seen Oogy, and within seconds had realized that he had had better ideas in his life. The sight of an eighty-five-pound dog with half a face barking and rushing to the window, the sound of his growling reverberating in the room, had to have been a sobering experience.

True to Diane’s word, six months after we had welcomed Oogy into our home, we received notification from Ardmore that it was time for his first scheduled checkup. I made an appointment, and no sooner had I walked in the door with Oogy than Karen, the technician sitting at the front desk in the reception area, took a look at him and, after a sharp intake of breath, blurted out, “That’s a Dogo!”

“What’s a Dogo?” I asked.

Karen started to laugh. “I’m not sure,” she said.

Not yet a year old and still growing, Oogy already weighed seventy pounds. He stood a little over two feet high at the shoulder and was about four feet from nose to tail. When he stretched out, the way he would to greet someone by placing his front paws on their shoulders, he was over five feet long. He had already far surpassed what we had been told his adult weight would be. The significance of this was that Oogy had to have been younger than the four months we were told he was when we adopted him. His estimated age at the time had been based upon his weight — thirty pounds — compared with what his weight was supposed to be when he was fully grown — fifty-five pounds. The fact that he was still growing, and that he was already twenty pounds heavier than the estimate given by Dr. Bianco for his weight as a grown dog, meant that he had to have been younger when we met him. Oogy may have been no more than two months old when used as bait.

When I look back at it now, I realize that Oogy’s size should perhaps have tipped us off that he was not a pit bull; but it is hard to be objective and make a determination about a dog’s breed based on a visual assessment of his size and weight when you have been told by someone who should know that the pup in your arms is a specific breed — especially when the actual breed is something that you, a dog lover, know nothing about. And, just as with a child, when you see a dog every day, the extent of his growth is so incremental that you can’t fully grasp or appreciate the process or the end result. Besides, Oogy
looked
like a pit bull — or, more accurately, a pit bull on steroids.

At this first checkup, Dr. Bianco examined and ran standard tests on Oogy and pronounced him to be in perfect health. Oogy also had his toenails clipped (Dogos’ toenails grow unusually quickly). The first few times the staff clipped Oogy’s nails, they muzzled him; then Diane realized that if one technician stroked him while the other worked on him, there would be no problems. Dr. Bianco gave me drops for the itching in the gash that had been Oogy’s left ear, which he pawed at constantly; it was repeatedly subject to yeast infections. Dr. Bianco recommended certain vitamin supplements, which Oogy has had every day since. Dr. Bianco also suggested an over-the-counter wetting solution for Oogy’s left eye. Distorted by scar tissue, the eye could not fully close when Oogy slept, and as a result, it could not self-lubricate. Ever since then, Oogy and I have used the same eye lubricant, as I, too, have “dry eye” syndrome. Dr. Bianco then asked that we arrange to come back so that he could put a microchip in Oogy’s neck. That way, if Oogy ever ran away and was picked up, he could be returned to us. Finally, Dr. Bianco told me to get rid of the retractable leash. Just the week before, he had had two clients whose dogs ran into the street before the locking mechanisms could be engaged, and both had been hit by cars. A dog as big and powerful as Oogy could easily present a similar problem, and he might even be able to break the restraint.

On the way home, I bought a different kind of leash.

After Dr. Bianco had concluded the examination, I went to the reception desk and took out my credit card, but Karen shook her head in the negative.

She said, “Oogy’s a no-pay.”

I asked, “What’s a ‘no-pay’?”

She explained, “That means you don’t pay for any of Oogy’s medical treatment here. Ever.”

I was stunned. I had never asked for special treatment, and I certainly hadn’t expected it. They had saved Oogy’s life and entrusted that life to us. And in our separate ways, all of us have contributed to his welfare as best we can. In all the years that have passed since we adopted Oogy, Ardmore Animal Hospital has
never
charged a dime for anything they have done or provided for Oogy — and multiple surgeries, medicines, and checkups were all required at different periods throughout Oogy’s life to maintain his health.

This speaks volumes both about the special nature of the people at the hospital and about Oogy himself. Years later, Diane revealed that she had made the decision that day not to charge for Oogy’s care. To begin with, she loved Oogy so much and thought his story so triumphant, she had been gratified that we also had immediately appreciated his special nature and had accepted him into our home without qualification and despite his horrific appearance. Then, when we brought him back and she saw how he was thriving in the environment we had created for him, she was thrilled for him and felt vindicated for all the effort that had gone into saving him. We were fulfilling the promise she had initiated, to cherish and care for this special animal. He
had
been worth it after all.

As soon as I got home that morning, I went online to research Dogos.

The breed is actually called Dogo Argentino. The first picture I saw of a Dogo looked exactly like Oogy. I stared at it in wonderment, looked away to Oogy sleeping on the floor beside me, then back at the picture on the screen. I began to scroll down the page. Because there is mastiff in the breed — the Dogo is also known as the Argentine mastiff — many of the other Dogos I saw in photographs had broader, rounder foreheads than Oogy’s, but his appearance is generally typical.

The Dogo was developed in the 1920s to be a pack hunter and guardian who could be trusted with a family. Dogos are bred to hunt puma (which damage livestock) and boar (which devastate crops), both of which were ravaging farms in Argentina because the farmers and landowners could not stop them or bring them under control. The Dogo is derived from a now extinct breed, the Dog of Cordoba, a fighting dog, and includes traits of the Great Dane (for size), boxer (liveliness and gentleness), Spanish mastiff (power), bulldog (ample chest and boldness), bull terrier (fearlessness), Great Pyrenees (white coat to deflect heat), pointer (sense of smell), Irish wolfhound (endurance and hunting instinct), and Dogue de Bordeaux (powerful jaws).

Adult Dogos typically weigh between one hundred and one hundred ten pounds. Because Oogy was mistreated in his first few months, however, he is comparatively small, weighing in at eighty-five pounds. Given Oogy’s strength and power at eighty-five pounds, I can’t imagine trying to take him for a walk if he weighed a hundred and ten.

A Dogo’s temperament is a fascinating combination of ferocity and gentle devotion to his family. They are unrelenting and fearless hunters — and I do not mean a hunter like a pointer or a retriever, I mean a hunter as in a killing machine. The muscle structure of the Dogo is simply massive, and the breed has tremendous stamina. They can track their prey at a gallop over great distances and are capable of incredible bursts of speed. They are bred to corner and hold their quarry, but they are also capable of killing their prey if it attempts to attack them or break out.

At the same time, the breed is known for being extremely loyal and affectionate with their families and to crave attention from their owners. They are wonderfully tolerant of children. Protective, they will guard their territory against any intruder not welcomed by the family. In Argentina, there is a saying: “A Dogo does not sit at your feet, it sits on your feet.” Conversely, the Dogo accepts without limitation people welcomed by the family. I learned that in addition to their valuable roles as hunting dogs, Dogos are often used for police and military work, in narcotics detection, for tracking, and in search and rescue. Dogos also make excellent guide dogs for the blind.

Dogos are not naturally aggressive with other dogs; aggressiveness was bred out of them, since they could not function as pack hunters if they were constantly trying to establish dominance. Oogy’s lack of aggression has occasionally encouraged other dogs to attack him. He has been intentionally bloodied on half a dozen occasions by other dogs. Oogy will not tolerate another dog trying to assert dominance and will defend himself, but as soon as the other dog is pulled away, Oogy loses any interest in fighting. However, because of the Dogo’s ferociousness in combat, they are routinely fought in South America, and the breed is one of four that has been outlawed in the United Kingdom. Some owners crop their ears because it makes the Dogo look more combative. Also, when a Dogo is hunting or fighting, cropped ears offer less of a target to the beast he has engaged. It is not simply coincidence that the dog that tore up Oogy ripped off one of his ears. A floppy or large ear is a target.

The Dogo is not commonly found in the United States. Few people I have met have even heard of the breed, let alone have been able to recognize one. I’m sure that a number of reasons would explain the “exotic” nature of the breed in this country, not least of which is the fact that a Dogo can typically cost thousands of dollars.

I once asked Dr. Bianco why he had thought Oogy was a pit bull. “Nobody ever sees Dogos here,” he explained. “In all my years as a vet, I’ve only ever treated one other Dogo. So I was not thinking of the breed. It never entered my mind at the time that this dog might be a Dogo. He looked like just another pit bull to me.”

When Oogy runs — actually, it is more like leaping than running — he thrusts himself forward in great bounds, all four legs in the air simultaneously like a greyhound. He can approach a top speed of almost thirty miles an hour — I once checked the speedometer to see how fast I was going as he raced alongside my car while he was still in the yard. His hind leg muscles are like coiled springs; they are so strong that when he sits and the muscles bunch, his butt does not touch the ground. He has a neck like a fireplug to protect him when he closes with his prey, with accordionlike folds of flesh bunched at the back of his head. A long rib cage curves back from a barrel chest to a whippetlike waist. Viewed from the front, Oogy’s broad chest is shaped like a box, and from the side, his body shape appears rectangular in the chest, then narrows as it recedes to his rump. He has thin black eyebrows, fine white eyelashes, and eyes that appear bloodshot, part of his Great Dane heritage.

There are numerous black splotches under Oogy’s short white fur, like those of a Dalmatian only much less pronounced, more like shadows of spots than spots. He looks as though a couple of paintbrushes had been shaken off all over him. One thing I really dreaded was telling Oogy that his career plans might not be as unlimited as he hoped. After reading about Dogos, I had to break the news to him that he could never be a show dog. “You’ve got too many spots,” I told him. “From what I’ve read, to be a show Dogo you can’t have more than one spot.” I did not want him engaging in flights of fancy that he could never realize. I didn’t want to encourage unrealistic goals in him. I thought he might take it hard, but he handled it with his usual aplomb.