Free Oogy The Dog Only a Family Could Love by Larry Levin Page B

good home’ ads. Wherever and however they can.” He shrugged resignedly.
    It was impossible for me to accept what had happened to this pup. To allow it to have happened under any circumstances — to have caused it to happen — was deplorable and repulsive. And there was something so radiantly special about this dog.
    The pup had a muzzle that narrowed to a large black nose; his broad forehead, I later discovered, was the result of all the swelling from his injuries and the subsequent surgery. I thought he might be the kind of dog that General Patton had had.
    “Is this a bull terrier?” I asked.
    Dr. Peters laughed. “No, he’s a pit bull.”
    “Where did he come from?” Dan asked.
    “He was brought into the ER sometime over the weekend after a police raid. They found this guy bleeding to death in a cage. The SPCA told them to bring him here.”
    “Why here?”
    “We’re the only hospital around with an after-hours ER facility,” Dr. Peters explained. “Otherwise, the hospitals on the Main Line get injured animals on a rotating basis.”
    “Do you know where this happened?”
    “I don’t. All I know is that Dr. Bianco operated on him for hours and managed to save him.”
    “Do you know how old he is?” Noah asked.
    “Somewhere around four months. We can’t really be sure.”
    “Of course,” I said. “How long has he been here?”
    “He came in in December, but I don’t recall the date offhand. About a month.”
    By this time, I had put the dog back down on the floor, and Noah and Dan and I were kneeling and petting him. He was prancing back and forth among the three of us, licking away. But the assistant needed to get him outside to do his business, so we said good-bye and watched them head out the door for their constitutional.
    “Who does he belong to?” I asked, certain that an animal with such charm and personality and with so much affection, and who had been at the hospital for several weeks, would by now have found an owner. I was hoping against hope that this might not be the case, and when Dr. Peters told me, “No one,” I felt amazingly fortunate and gratified.
    Then I said to the boys, grinning, “Guys? How about it? Should we adopt him?”
    They both agreed without a moment’s hesitation.
    “Well,” I said, “now that that’s settled, we have to get approval from the CEO.”
    “Mom?” the boys asked in chorus.
    “Sure. I’ll call on Monday,” I told Dr. Peters. “Don’t let anyone else put in a claim for him until then, okay?”
    “I promise,” he said.
    I felt giddy. I could not wait to get that dog into my house. When I took the boys back home, and we told Jennifer about the dog, she was less than enthusiastic. In fact, she said no.
    She had her reasons. Our previous dog, also a rescue, had bitten a friend of the boys in an unprovoked attack; it had taken eleven stitches to close the gash in his face. Although that had happened over a year and a half ago, Jennifer was understandably fearful that an abused pit bull presented a realistic chance that someone, or someone’s pet, might be brutalized. We asked her to come meet the dog and experience his personality, to talk to Dr. Bianco about it. To my surprise, she agreed. But she also said that she was going to ask Dr. Bianco if he could guarantee that the dog did not pose a threat, and if he gave her any response other than an unqualified no (which, she told me years later, she never thought he would be able to do), she would refuse to allow the dog in the house.
    “This really is Mr. Happy Dog,” Dr. Bianco told her the following Monday morning. “This little guy is one of the happiest dogs I have ever met.” And then he added, smiling, “I can’t imagine what he’d be like if half of his face hadn’t been ripped off.”
    Dr. Bianco, Jennifer, and I were in one of the examination rooms with the pup, who lay on a steel table while Dr. B stroked his flanks. I was lazily rubbing his head, which he held erect,