Rottweiler Rescue Read Online Free PDF Page B

and assured them that I was capable of driving home by myself.
    I lied. Instead of starting the drive home, I detoured to the drive-through line at the nearest Arby’s. Robot might not like people, but he was a fan of people food. Sharing a roast beef sandwich and potato cakes with him made me feel better. After all was said and done, the day was ending for both of us the same way it had begun, going down the road together. All considered, it could have been worse. For Jack Sheffield it had been a lot worse.

Chapter 4
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    That first male Rottweiler that I’d ever met was my ex-husband’s dog Butch. Butch was only one of the surprises John Brennan brought into our marriage. Like many young men, John had gotten himself a Rottweiler puppy on a whim.
    Of course, unlike a Harley, a pickup, or a tattoo, the living breathing masculinity symbol John chose grew into an unruly adult dog that he dumped on his mother, who kept Butch tied in her yard until her son married me and she saw her chance. On her first visit to our new home, “Mother” Brennan brought Butch with her and tied him in our yard.
    “Now that you have a home of your own, you need a watch dog,” she said, almost unable to contain her glee.
    Butch was only one of the many things John and I disagreed about with increasing vehemence over the course of our short and unhappy union. Our divorce settlement did not address the dog because neither of us wanted him. John was out of the house by then and never responded to any plea to take his dog. His mother had moved to another state. With no little bitterness, I suspected she’d deliberately made herself unavailable for involvement with any debris from our failed marriage, particularly Butch.
    “Just take him to the pound,” John told me blithely. “He’s a great dog. Someone will adopt him.”
    As a matter of fact, I did take him to a shelter, the politically correct term for pound, but I never took him inside. Even without knowing the statistics, I suspected John’s “great dog,” so totally untrained that getting a leash on him and battling his filthy self into my car had taken all my strength and wiles, would not attract a line of eager adopters.
    I watched several other people take dogs into the building. No one took any out. I wondered what Butch’s odds would be in that place. I wondered how they killed — euthanized — the unwanted.
    Butch never went in that building, but in the end, I did. The staff was quite willing to tell me about an alternative for Butch. Rottweiler Rescue. It sounded grand. It sounded safe. I called the number they gave me with great relief and got — Susan McKinnough.
    The reason Susan is fond of me, I suspect, is that I’m one of the few callers wanting to “find a new home” for an unwanted and hopelessly unadoptable dog who ever listened to her.
    Susan told me the unvarnished truth she tells all callers like me.
    “Most adopters want young dogs. The few people who will adopt a dog as old as four want one that’s housebroken, trained, good with children and other animals. If you find someone to take him, they’ll keep him exactly the way your husband kept him, on a chain in the yard. Do you think that’s any kind of life for a dog?”
    No, I didn’t, which was why John and I had argued about Butch on and off for the entire two years of our marriage. It was also why I felt guilty. I had argued but had never done anything about it, in part because I didn’t know what to do.
    Susan also told me about the other things that could happen to an intact male Rottweiler like Butch, things that were worse than living on a chain. She explained that sometimes euthanasia is the only decent thing that can happen to a dog.
    “He’s only four years old,” I argued. “Surely there has to be something better for him.”
    “He’s your dog,” she said. “If you aren’t willing to do what he needs, why do you think someone else should?”
    He’s not my dog! I wanted to