Molly is also known as The Bean. This was by necessity, because Katy’s middle name is Bell — Katy Bell — and Buster’s is Bear — Buster Bear. Therefore, it should be crystal clear that Molly needed a middle name beginning with “b.” Hence, Molly Bean, or The Bean. Hence!
Anyhoo, she has been the sweetest, most loving dog ever. So ridiculously sweet. We have also called her Brown Sugar and Caramel Lovin’ because she is just sooo sweet. Sweetness is a great quality in any dog, but it’s pretty necessary in one that weighs over 90 pounds. A dog that big needs to be good-natured and kind. It would be good if she were calm, too, but she just isn’t, so I’ve had to deal with a rambunctious pony.
Lately, though, I have seen some darkness creeping over her usually sunny personality. Starting about two months ago, she began to reveal another side. First there were flashes or glimpses of either aggression or fear — hard to tell which. When we were walking, she would growl at people instead of wagging her tail. This is at its worst when someone startled her. For example, during one walk, we were loitering by the curb as Katy sniffed at a dead worm or some poo, just as the homeowner came out of the garage. This startled me a bit, but it apparently scared the heck out of Molly, and she reacted by growling, raising her hackles, and charging to the end of the leash. A very scary sight for the homeowner who was just minding her own business, just taking out the trash in her own driveway, to be greeted by that Harry Potter dog with only one head. On another occasion I had taken the dogs to run in some woods near the park. These woods are criss-crossed with biking and jogging trails. We rarely see anyone there. The dogs were running around, chasing each other, acting like idiots. Suddenly, Molly just erupted in an explosion of barking, but not “There goes a kitty!” barking — serious, scary barking. Move and I’ll kill you barking. A woman was running through the area and she and Molly had startled each other, leading to Molly’s outburst. The woman, who probably weighed less than Molly, was TERRIFIED. As would any reasonable person be. As soon as I grabbed Molly’s collar, she lit into me verbally, for which I don’t blame her one bit.
There were a couple more similar incidents that punctuated her happy demeanor, but the other shoe fell really hard a couple of weeks ago. It has been raining a lot lately, turning our back yards into muddy messes. Therefore, we decided to take the dogs to the “real” dog park to burn off some of their energy. As we were walking up toward the park, Molly was growling and charging quite a bit. Some jackass who was leaving the fenced-in area had his dogs off the leash, which made Molly a bit crazy and scare me — I can have a bit of control over her when she[s on the leash, but he had NO control over his dogs. As she was spazzing out over these dogs, I shoved her with my foot to get her attention. The dude looked at me like I was Hannibal Lecter and rolled his eyes, as though a physical correction for a huge dog who is behaving badly was completely inappropriate. Bad omen. When we actually got to the fenced-in play area, she seemed to settle down enough to be taken off the leash. We played fetch for a while while the other dogs socialized. Buster was having a FABULOUS time — he was working the crowd, kissing babies, getting votes — when Molly started giving signals again. She again had her hackles up and was growling and snapping at other dogs. I grabbed her collar and leash and started getting her out of there asap. The collar and leash made her worse and she started charging at every dog that wandered within a 10-foot radius. Until you’ve tried to control a really big dog that is trying to actually hurt other living things, it’s hard to understand how frightening such a creature can be. The very worst part, of course, is the contrast between what Molly was a few months ago and the one that really, truly frightens people. It’s hard to describe that feeling — it’s like finding out your middle-schooler stabs people. Or masturbates. Or something.
So right now I have a lethal weapon napping and farting next to me on the couch. Oh, Bean. Why did you have to grow up?
