Bad dog

The Yang family dog bites a stranger, leading to a chain of unfortunate events

I've written about our dog Shao Hu before -- the feisty, hyper-intelligent Korean Jindo who came into my life along with my wife, who jokingly used to call him her dowry. "Two for the price of one," Heather told me when I first met him. "If he doesn't like you, dude, we've got a problem."

Fortunately, he accepted me into the pack as its provisional lowest-ranked member, and he's been a gracious friend and benevolent master ever since.

Shao Hu's name means "Little Fox" in Chinese, but that's a bit of a misnomer. Although, like other Asian breeds, he has a foxy appearance -- pentagonal head, pointed nose, whitish chest ruff -- he's not particularly little. He weighs 35 pounds and pulls like 150; when he's excited, you need to quickly brace and anchor or he'll take you for a drag.

What excites him? Anything that tickles his atavistic vulpine brain: Autumn leaves swirling in the breeze, small animals darting across his field of vision, and especially, other dogs who dare to parade through his turf -- the boundaries of which vary depending on how frisky Shao Hu feels on a given walkabout.

When he's being magnanimous, he'll allow neighborhood dogs free passage past our house with nothing more than narrowed eyes and a faint, glottal rumble in his lower throat. When he's in a hardass mood, he'll defend his squatter's rights to the entire walkable neighborhood. On those days, attempts by other dogs to lift leg and plant flag in Hu-ville generate a furious reprimand in enraged Jindoggerel, which translates into native Brooklynese as something like WANNA-PIECE-O-ME-PIECE-O-ME-PIECE-O-ME? Even the local big dogs -- Shepherds and mastiffs -- tend to back away from Shao Hu's challenges, muttering something under their dog breath about "crazy Asian canines."

But we'd never thought of Shao Hu as posing a threat to humans. He's always allowed the kids to treat him like a living chew-toy, submitting to tugging and hugging and poking and prodding and, in one memorable incident, letting then four-year-old Hudson draw all over his face and muzzle with a blue permanent marker, all without administering so much as an impatient nip.

On walks, when people compliment him and ask if they can pet him, he'll submit regally to caresses, and maybe even offer a few soft tongue-licks in return if the person in question is gentle, before snapping his head rapidly back and forth on its axis to politely signal that the audience is over, he has other business to attend to.

At home, when unfamiliar people come to visit, he'll become visibly upset, but rather than acting aggressive, he'll race over to his food dish and begin rapidly snarfing as much of his kibble as he can gobble. (The first time I encountered this phenomenon -- on my first date with Heather, years before we got married -- I told her it looked like Shao Hu had done a little time in jail.)

Love at first bite

But last week, something happened that changed everything. I was out of town on business, so I only heard what happened third-hand. However, the repercussions are still rippling, and for Shao Hu and his human pack, they are potentially profound.

My mother-in-law, who'd moved back to New Jersey once our youngest son became old enough to talk back, had come over to watch the kids -- Heather, having just started a new job, was stuck at an after-work orientation session. Upon Heather's exhausted return, her mom decided she'd give her a break and take Shao Hu for a walk herself.