Copyright (c) 2000 by Michael Finley

I knew I should place the call to the vet’s and schedule Beau to be neutered, but I just didn’t pick up the phone. Call it denial, call it a dogman’s hope that he won’t have to have his best friend castrated – destroyed in order to be saved, as we said of villages in Vietnam.

One day, things came to a head. Beau and I had made a couple of trips down below the Lake Street Bridge separating the Twin Cities. There was a University rowing club down there, until an arsonist burned the great boat barn to the ground. But there is not much else, and Beau and I walked a finger of sand running alongside the Mississippi.

On one such trip, I found a beaver lodge. Right smack dab in the city, under the bridge, amid all the honking and pollution, two beavers had made a home for themselves. At least a fourth of the timber on this narrow strand – hundreds of young trees, and a dozen large ones, including a mighty cottonwood -- had been gnawed to the ground by them, and dragged toward their lodge.

The male was often visible, cruising the shore. If he sensed our presence, he would dive down with a loud sploosh – I think to draw attention toward himself and away from his mate down below. Beau hailed the male beaver with a mighty howl. He had never seen a beaver before.

I told my family about the lodge and they agreed it would be nice to visit. So the Saturday after Thanksgiving, we all trekked down under the bridge. I cautioned everyone to be quiet as we neared the lodge. But we must have been too noisy, because the beavers did not put in an appearance. It also occurred to me that the beavers might be gone, or dead. The water going through the city is not the cleanest.

Walking back, we hailed a man with a Doberman-Rottweiler mix on a leash. As soon as I saw them, I clamped a leash on Beau, to avoid embarrassment. But the dogs seemed to want to be with one another, and the man and I did a “shall we?” to one another, and unleashed the two dogs.

It was the mistake of a lifetime for Beau. Within seconds he was confronting this stolid dog, baring his teeth and issuing horrid growls from deep inside him. The Dobie-Rott seemed less passionate than Beau, but unafraid of a scrap. I was fumbling with the leash trying to slip it back on Beau when the fight began. I was caught right between them, and the collision was violent.

A poodle is classified as a soft-mouthed animal, bred to retrieve a bird without mangling it in his maw. A Dobie-Rott, by contrast, can probably crunch concrete with his teeth. It was an utter mismatch

Though the battle only lasted three seconds, it was different from the other confrontations Beau had forced. In the others, I had a clear sense that Beau was putting on a show of ferocity, and other dog complied with a show of his own. Here, he looked and sounded truly awful. But it was a bad miscalculation, because the other dog wasn’t putting on a show, and didn’t take Beau's antics as theatrical. Swiftly and efficiently, he lunged toward Beau, took the poodle’s throat in his jaws, and bit down.

Beau crumpled, blood leaking from his side. He was still growling, but now it was with an eye to ending the conflict and not being bitten again. I finally snapped on the leash, and noticed I too was bleeding. There was a three-inch cut on my calf, that felt more like an abrasion than a bite. I believe it was caused by the Dobie-Rott’s collar rubbing against me.

The man and I looked at each other. He was scared, and I was in shock. I mumbled an apology – it was Beau’s fault, after all – and moved to get Beau out of the area. Blood was pulsing from his neck and foreleg, and he was shivering and confused. We had a choice between walking a half mile upriver and following the paved path, or climbing the cliff and getting more quickly to the car. With my bad knee, I couldn’t carry the dog, and neither could Rachel or the kids. So I knew I had to coax the stunned animal to follow as best he could on foot. Up the path we went, a drop of blood marking every step.

I believed Beau was going to bleed to death. My hope was to get him to the car, and race him to the vet’s.

We rushed Beau to the vet's, and I decided in the car that, if we could save his life, as seemed increasingly likely -- he had not lost consciousness and was sitting calmly with the sock-turned-tourniquet tied around his shoulder -- that he would be the beneficiary of two operations that day, not one.

In the receiving room, Beau continued to lose blood, stepping into the puddles and smearing them along the tiled floor. But he was compliant when I lifted him onto the examining table, and patient with the doctor, who slapped on a bandage and stopped the immediate bleeding.

"Doctor," I said, "I think it's time I had him neutered."

She agreed. And as they led Beau away to his confinement pen, I caught one last look at him being dragged through the door, his eyes locked on me as the door closed. I think I know now how Judas felt as Jesus was led out of the garden.

When I returned for him the next day, I was afraid. I was afraid he would remember my betrayal, and sense his diminished capacity. I had ordered the end of his sexual life. How could it not affect our relationship?

But when they brought him out to me, I felt bad for a different reason. His face, neck, and leg were shaved. A big bandage, containing an internal drain, bound up his left elbow. They put a plastic collar on him, to prevent him from biting and licking his wound. The collar could not fit through the half-opened door, and he banged is face and shoulders against it violently -- because he saw me, and wanted to get to me, whatever the cost.