Lovey the Killer Lab

Our new dog Lovey has a dark side. Last weekend, while we were in Portland, Lovey stayed with some friends who have two kids a few years older than ours. They played, they ran on the beach, they played fetch until the tennis ball sank in the ocean. They called us on Sunday and said they wanted to steal him from us.

Then it all went very very bad.

They took him to a relative's house, where another dog lives. They were very careful to observe the two dogs together; everything was fine. Then about two hours into the day, Lovey attacked the other dog. Nobody saw what happened (a 5yo kid was the only human in the vicinity) but the sounds of snarling gnashing and yipping made it pretty easy to put the pieces together. Oh, and the gaping wound that covered half of the other dog's face and nearly caused her to lose an eye.

Lovey acted very sheepish and moped around the house for several days after he came home. Tuesday another friend was here with his dogs and insisted that I let Lovey out to see how he would behave. Even after hearing the above story, he said, "Let's see how it goes. I take full responsibility for whatever happens." Within two minutes Lovey had one of the dogs by the haunches, whipping his head back and forth trying to pull a leg off. "Oh, *that* kind of biting." Yeah, that kind.

Not sure what this means for Lovey as a permanent member of the Wilmo household. He has never shown any signs of aggression toward the kids. But it makes me nervous. We'll see.

Update 2/10/07: Lovey is gone. We are all very sad.