When our family dog became possessed and had to be euthanized

 Yes, it can and did happen.

Our beloved 10 year-old dog who was born in our home, was raised with all of us from birth, who loved “his kids”, who would walk beside them to protect them from falling into our inground pool, who would jump into the pool to drag their little asses back out when they were playing, to “rescue them”, he became possessed and only hours after the priest left our home from blessing it to make a relentless demon leave.

Our beloved dog lived for exactly 11 hours after he became possessed and until he had to be euthanized.

This is an honest to God true story that I still have a hard time wrapping my head around.

We could not take the demonic things that were happening anymore.

I literally had small pieces of paper with the word “Jesus” on them, taped to every window in my home and crucifixes over every door, because my mother in-law (a devout Christian) would tell me that the Devil cannot pass through any entrance with the name of Jesus or a crucifix over any entrances, unless invited.

We were at our wits end. 

Ok, maybe they can't come in, but how do we get them out?

I finally contacted the priest at our church and asked him to please come and bless our home and remove this awful demon(s) that was inhabiting our home; a ritual we were no strangers to and would usually work at least for a short time.

On this particular day, the day our priest came to the house, my little grandson (and first born grandson) who was 9 months old at the time was crawling all over our dog, grabbing at his face, kissing him and laying on him, running his little cars up and down his back that afternoon.

At about 2pm I heard a knock at the door, knowing it was the priest and that our dog was intimidating to people who had never met him (he was 159 lb. Rottweiler, he was a big boy) I decided to put him in a room so the priest wasn't placed into an odd or frightening situation, despite that our dog was not aggressive. 

The priest came into our house, he asked me a few questions and began going room to room in every cabinet, closet and draw, under beds and every crack of the room blessing it while reciting prayers out loud and spraying holy water.

The priest began in the down stairs family room, closets, bedrooms, bathroom and utility room and worked his way up to the main floor.

He blessed the kitchen, dining room, living room, office and great room and when he got to the room where I had our dog in, I told him that my dog was in there and why I had put him in room, and so the priest thanked me in a funny kind of tone, and he did not open the door to bless that room.

Our priest then headed up the stairs to bless three more bedrooms and a bathroom and all of the closets and the draws to the bureaus within.

Before leaving, our priest blessed everyone in the house and he firmly told me that whatever was in this house was gone and had no choice but to leave because he blessed every room, closet and draw. He said “There was no place in the house for this thing to run away to or to hide”.

Feeling confident and very relieved, I thanked him and he left never once thinking about our dog or the room that I had him in.

It was approximately 4pm at this point and so I began getting my dinner ready as we normally ate dinner around 5 – 5:30pm.

After dinner, the kids and I cleared the table, we filled the dishwasher, wiped down the counters and swept the floors as we always did. 

At approximately 9pm - 9:30pm I was in the office on the computer with our dog laying on the floor behind my office chair when my sixteen year-old daughter came in to give me a hug and kiss goodnight because she was going to bed.

I remember having my back to her as she entered the office because I was facing the computer and she bent down to give our dog a kiss goodnight as she always did, when I suddenly heard a blood curling scream. I will never forget the sound of her scream.

I jumped up and saw my dog had my baby's entire face in his mouth, with his upper body off the ground, and as his body was coming back down, copious amounts of blood was spewing from the front of my daughters face.

Everything seemed to be in slow motion and I began to scream for help.

As I got to my daughter the front of my dogs body had met the floor and he was jumping up again as he tried to grab her face a second time, when I threw my body on top of him causing his entire body to slam against the floor.

My poor baby had both of her hands holding the front of her face as she was screaming by the time my husband got into the office. Oh my God, there was so much blood everywhere.

I don't know how I did, but I got hold of our dog and threw his gigantic body through the office door and tackled him to the floor a second time because by now our other 4 kids were running into the office and I was terrified that he would attack one of them too.

All the while my husband screaming "get away from him" afraid that he was going to attack me next.

Our oldest daughter was already calling 911 and I could hear her crying uncontrollably as she was trying to relay information to 911.

My husband was helping our daughter and all I knew was that I had to get our dog out and away from our other kids and so I shoved him into the closest room available, which was the same room that he was in when the priest came that afternoon only seven hours earlier.

Within 10 minutes, 4 state troopers, 2 local police, an ambulance and a fire truck showed up. Unknown to us at the time, they had also called the local vet to the house knowing it was a severe dog bite caused by what they believed at the time was a rabid dog, despite my oldest daughters objections that there was no way our dog had rabies.

Our sixteen year-old daughter was taken with my husband to the hospital and I stayed behind to handle the troopers, police, the vet and our other kids when I over-heard the troopers saying they wanted to take my dog out to our field and “have some fun with him".

Our oldest daughter in tears, heard while trying to process what had just happened to her younger sister, the troopers talk about our beloved family dog as if he was some rabid monster that they were going to take into the field and have fun purposely torturing him with bullets. 

I remember seeing and hearing my oldest daughter yell at the troopers that they were not going to touch our dog (over her dead body) and she said that "this was not him, that something was wrong". 

At this point, I don't know what end is up and I'm experiencing all kinds of emotions from hurt and anger to fear and worry about my daughter who was just rushed away by ambulance because our family dog just mauled her face.

All I heard was my oldest yelling and the troopers saying "Have fun with him".

They literally wanted to take our dog out to the field and torture him. Our family dog who had always loved “his kids”, slept with them and had always protected them.

Oh My God, this is our family dog, my daughters faces has been mauled, I was trying to process everything while also thinking about how my 9 month old grandson was playing with him, grabbing his face, kissing him only hours earlier. I cannot express the image that repeated in my mind. 

Our oldest daughter was in tears over her sister, and also over our beloved dog who had never done anything like this before, let alone ever shown any kind of aggression toward anyone in his whole life.

He was part of our family. And these strangers want to take him out to a field to torture him?

These idiots even tried telling me that I had no choice but to hand the dog over to them immediately. They even tried guilting me using my daughter who had just been mauled. 

Nope, not going to happen. I was then told that I (somehow me) was responsible for having the local vet come to my house after hours, as if I was the one who asked him to. Not. 

I told them they needed to leave so I could meet my husband at the hospital to be with our daughter. I'm obviously not going to leave these fruit cakes alone with my kids. 

Before they left, I was told that in the morning I would have to produce paperwork that proved our dog had his rabies shot or I had no choice but to hand him over. Of course my dogs always had all of their shots so I knew it wasn't rabies.

This was so out of character for our dog, all of this was truly unbelievable.

Additionally, when you get your dog their rabies shots the town is alerted from the vet for licensing purposes (where we live at least), and it is recorded by the town which then makes you license your dog usually in spring, so I know all they have to do is contact the town to find out if our dog received his rabies shot (which he did). 

They tried everything to force me to hand our dog over to them but I wouldn't budge. I thanked them for coming out and told them they needed to leave and that I would decide what was going to happen next, knowing full well that once our dog attacked one of our kids, he could never be trusted again and he would need to be euthanized.

After they left, I brought our dog who now appeared “back to normal” in every possibly way, out to the barn before I left for the hospital. 

His reaction was almost as if he knew what he did. He was cowering, he'd look up at me and then look away when I would make eye contact with him. He knew, at least for that moment that he had done something terrible.

I did not realize in that moment that that would be the last glimpse I would get of our dog being "back to normal" and was able to realize for himself that he had done something wrong.

I brought him out to the barn out of fear and into one of our kennels. I did not want him in the house with our other kids because I had no idea why he did what he did or if it would happen again. I only knew what he had just done and it was too dangerous to leave him in the house with my other kids.

All I knew was that our daughter, who he would climb in bed with to sleep with almost every night, literally bent over to kiss him goodnight as she had always done. There was nothing different or anything to indicate that something was wrong before he spontaneously tore through her beautiful face.

I got my dog into the kennel and I placed a cross on his forehead before closing the door to the kennel. This was something we did (and still do) in our family with each other nightly before going to bed. As I began to walk away and had my back toward my dog, I heard something that sounded like an object had hit the chain link kennel, followed by a disturbing growl come from my dog. 

When I say disturbing, the sound of this growl was not the sound of a dog growl, it was a very deep forced growl, that culminated in a sound almost like a screech, and it sent chills within my body. I turned around an my dog was standing inside his kennel by the door to it that I had just closed, but he was wagging his "nub" (his tail like most Rottweilers were docked to the 1st vertebrae resulting in what we called "nub") and he was acting back to normal like he wanted me to come back to him. 

However, I noticed that a metal food bowl that was in his kennel was outside of his kennel on the floor and it was on the ground in between two other kennels. The sound I heard of something hitting the chain link was of this bowl being thrown and hitting the other chain link kennels before landing in between them. 

My kennels were 6 feet wide, 6 feet tall and 8 feet deep and yet this bowl was somehow picked up and thrown over a 6 foot tall kennel. Due to everything that had happened that night and at the time, my mind dismissed it and I chalked it up to some fluke and didn't think much of it because I wanted to get to the hospital. 

I got to the hospital and a very good plastic surgeon was called in to help my daughter. 60% of the left side of our daughters face & mouth was missing and most of her nose was detached from her face.

Fortunately what we thought was “missing” from our daughters face was hidden and tucked inside of her mouth so the plastic surgeon was able to stitch my baby's face. He repeatedly would tare out the stitches around her lips and redo them because he wanted them to be “absolutely perfectly matched up to where they should be or were”.

After we returned home and got our daughter comfortable to be able to sleep, we tried to go to bed but really didn't. I was extremely worried about my daughter and I knew that our dog had to be put down. Once your dog does that to your kids, he can never be trusted again.

The next morning I called my own vet and told her what happened. She had me pick up tranquilizers to tranquilize our dog before bringing him in. I was truly at a loss. I wanted to know what made our beloved family dog suddenly do this to one of “:his kids”. This was literally out of nowhere.

I reminisced about how he knew who “his kids” were by the phrase. He literally knew; “go check on your kids”, had always protected and played with them, slept with them, cuddled with them, I just didn't understand.

I picked up the tranquilizers from my vet and I went home. This was not easy for me by any stretch. Of course I'm pissed off and hurt because of what he did to my baby, but why? This was so out of nowhere for him.

When I opened the door to the barn and approached the kennel that I had my dog in (I had kennels because I used to breed and train dogs for over 17 years at the time) I immediately noticed that he was laying down in a disturbing, un-natural position.

His hind end looked like he was melded into the back of the kennel, pushed up against the back wall of the kennel, with his two front paws and arms bent at the elbow in the opposite direction underneath his chest. Dogs' fore paws do not naturally bend that way. His arms would need to be broken to be in this position. I was really taken aback by this and alarmed and so I called out to him. I really didn't believe what I was seeing and maybe it just "looked" that way. 

But, he would not move or even acknowledge me which is extremely rare for him. This is a dog who understood over 36 + words and hand signals, listened and responded on a dime.
When I left him the night before, he was wagging his nub and acting normal. 

This time, he didn't acknowledge me or even blink. He just stared straight ahead of him.

I was afraid. I wasn't afraid of him, even if he had lost his mind completely, he is in a zoo quality kennel, I was afraid because I knew something was terribly wrong, but I had no idea what it was.

As I turned around to walk away, I hear a whine coming from him and when I turn around and look, he's standing by the kennel door wagging his tail. Of course this brought my mind to thoughts of “he's back to normal” and so I thank God and I walk back over to him as if he is the dog that he always was. 

This was not the case. As soon as I said his name and pushed my hand through the kennel to pat him, he began growling at me and looked at me as if he did not know who I even was. It was a horrible experience.

There was nothing behind his eyes.

Here is a dog that I raised with my kids from birth who we loved with all of our hearts and trusted, all of a sudden he attacked our daughter and he does not even recognize me.

It was like he would be normal when I would walk away, then immediately switch back to being a monster when I approached him. He would switch to growling and I would walk away filled with hurt and emotions hard to explain. As I walked away, he would whine and wag his tail and act like the dog I always knew. It was a very bizarre experience.

But then it occurred to me, our dog and the room he was in where the only things that were not blessed by the priest. And, whatever was “in” my dog was trying to trick me and torment me by whining and wagging his tail (acting normal) when I would walk away in tears, but would growl at me when I would return to him. This would also explain the un-natural position our dog was in when I first went to him in the morning.

But, the reality was; this was not my dog. His mind had now been completely taken over by something that monstrously hurt our beautiful daughter, and would result in the death of our beloved dog.

The demon that was inhabiting our dog was purposely playing games with my emotions and trying to trick me. But, that's how Demons operate. 

I would walk away and our dog would act normal which would make me go back to see “my dog”, but then when I got to my dog, he would growl at me to show me he wasn't my dog.
It was Heart wrenching, after all that had happened.

My husband grabbed his 9MM for protection, was able to literally swing a muzzle onto our beloved family dog and got him into the truck, and he and I brought him to our vet. I was never able to give him the tranquilizers because I was never able to get close enough to him to even give him food with the tranquilizers in it.

I insisted on being with my dog when they started the IV that would euthanize him but he didn't even know I was there. He wouldn't acknowledge me, that I was there or even look at me, he just kept staring straight and it seemed he never blinked.

After they were successful at administering tranquilizers, I kissed him on the muzzle that covered his nose, I put a cross on his head and I said I loved him and that I was sorry, and he never once looked at me. 

I only hoped that my dog's mind was so far gone that he didn't realize what was happening.

A big part of me died.

But this is how Demons work, they get off on the hurt they can cause you.

I know, from dealing with ignorant people for over 17 years that people may say; "he is a Rottweiler, what else did you expect?".  

No. Stop the ignorance. 

Rottweilers are not bred to attack and maul, they were bred to "protect". Just as Pit Bulls were originally bred in Ireland to hunt boar, and not bred to attack and maul or to be placed into a "pit" to fight. 

 Each breed of dog was bred for a specific purpose. 

However, in our society each breed takes its decades long turn of societies ignorance: German Shepard's were smart, yet fierce, then it was Doberman Pinchers who were killers, then it was Rottweilers who were the demonic killers, then it was Pitbulls who were killers with "locking jaws". 

I noticed that the Cane Corso is the up and coming breed that you will probably being hearing more and more about next as being the new vicious breed. 

Each of these breeds were bred for a specific purpose, yet none of them were bred to kill people. 

And an FYI there is no locking mechanism in a Pitbull's jaw as you may have heard. That is just absolutely false and it has has been proven false over and over again. But, it goes to show you the misinformation people will throw out there. 

I was a former dog handler for many years, I know what it takes to make an aggressive dog and they are not just "born people killers". 

I will go one further here and say one day one of my daughters' was notified on FB that two Pitbull puppies from Portsmouth NH were going to be "put down" if they were not adopted within something like 48 hours. My daughter immediately contacted them and said we (me and her) would take at least one of them as at the time we could not take them both. 

Upon arrival to pick up the puppy in Portsmouth NH (which was a 6 week old female puppy) we were told that her father was "bred to kill", saw him and his ferociousness and we were terrified. We were again told that she was being put down, this time it was because "her and her brother's nose were too long" for a "pitbull". 

We were also told by the mother of the girl who placed the posting on FB that her daughter had taken this little angel from her dog mother at 3 weeks old and was brought to UMASS to live with the girl. When the girl could not keep her at the college she had to find a home for her.

I don't know anyone with a brain cell who does this kind of stuff to animals: take a 3 week old puppy from its mother at all, to live in a college no less, "breed a dog to kill" or "we're going to put her down because her nose is too long". 

At this point I had wished they had brought the little angels brother with her to meet us because after hearing all of this, I would have taken him too despite that I wasn't in a position at the time to take both pups. I would have made it work.
I just wanted to save these little babies from these people. 

The pic on the right is a pic of the little angel cuddled up inside my daughters jacket on our ride home after picking her up. My daughter named her "Nike".

And, here she is all grown up...

Despite that her father was "bred to kill" and that he clearly had no people skills, I have never had such a maternal, loving dog in all of the years that I have worked with dogs. That is an absolute true story.

Nike, is the kind of dog who is, well, maternal. That's the only word that I can use to describe her personality. She is the embodiment of being a loving, nurturing, mother to everyone.

She thinks she knows what's best... for all of us, and she has no problem vocalizing her opinion when you defy her wishes. 


And, here she is today with our other two dogs...

Since day one Nike prefers to be "under", that means cuddled up under blankets at all times, every day. She has many but you are witness to her favorite one. 

If anyone of us are sitting on the couch and we don't get the hint that she wants to be "under", she will let you know to cover her by pushing the blanket up with her nose and she will paw at it until you cover her. She actually prefers to be completely under blankets, head and all, but she always has one at least on her.

So regarding some people who will say or who will think that our beloved family dog who attacked my daughter, attacked her because he was a Rottweiler, please stop the nonsense and think about what it really could have been that made him attack, as hard or as profound as it is to believe.