Chapter 1 – Chap 1

When I was 22, I finally moved out of my parent’s house. I was waiting for a stable job until I moved out, but I could tell my parents were anxious for me to move out, even though they told me I could stay as long as I wanted. I don’t go to college. The career I want does require it. In case you are wondering, I want to be a dog trainer. I know it doesn’t pay a lot, but it’s what I want to do. Plus, there is a chance that I could become a well known dog trainer and make a decent amount of money.

My parents never allowed any pets though, even when I bugged them for a dog since I was 10 years old. How do I know I want to be a dog trainer if I never had a dog you ask? Well, when I was 15, my friend, David, had a dog. His dog was a beautiful German Shepard Labrador mix. When I went over his house once, I saw him training his dog and I offered to help, even though I didn’t know the first thing about training a dog. My friend started to teach me the basics that he knew and demonstrated them to me with his dog. I tried it out and I loved it. From then on, I would do a lot of research into training a dog. That only made me beg my parents for one even more. It got to the point that I would get grounded on a regular basis, but I wasn’t about to give up the dog I have always wanted. My parents never did get me a dog though, but I still never gave up. Now, back to me moving out.

It was a Tuesday morning in July and I loaded the last box into the moving truck with the help of my dad.

“Well son, this is it. I’m proud of you.” my dad said to me. “Are you sure you can provide for yourself with your supermarket job?”

“I’ll be fine, dad.”

“Okay. Well, if you ever need anything at all, just give me a call.”

My dad gave me a hug and so did my crying mother next to him.

“I’m gonna miss you Adam.” my mother said while hugging me.

“I’ll miss you too mom.”

I got in my car and took one last look at my house before driving off. Now, the house that I bought was nothing special. It was two floors, had one bedroom, a relatively small kitchen, a living room, a small dining room, and a bathroom with a shower.

Before I moved out, my parents and I went out shopping for furniture. They paid for all of it even after I said I could, but they insisted. Once I got to my house, I unpacked everything and made some lunch with the little food I brought with me. I made some spaghetti and my mom’s homemade meatballs with her homemade tomato sauce. My mom made the best Italian food. After a few weeks of living alone, I got kind of lonely. My girlfriend had broken up with me 3 months prior to moving in and I wasn’t ready to start dating again. We had dated for 5 years, and eventually she broke up with me, saying that we weren’t working. Later I found out she was seeing someone else for 2 months before she dumped me.

Since I was lonely, I decided that I wanted to take up the responsibility of a dog. I have wanted one all my life, and it would also give me some practice on dog training. I went on numerous adoption websites, and after 3 weeks, I found the perfect dog. His name was Dusk. He was a Staffordshire Bull Terrier. He was 9 weeks old then, and in need of a home with one person since he was found in a box floating down a river and was scared of too many people around him at once at the moment.

I applied right away and 1 week later, they emailed me saying that my application was the perfect fit for this particular dog. I was overjoyed and couldn’t wait to bring Dusk home. I had to wait a whole week for my boy, and let me tell you, that week leading up to getting a new dog is longer than a kid waiting for Christmas at the beginning of December. During that week, I got prepared. I went to the pet store and got him tug toys, chew toys, soft toys for training, a water and food bowl, the food that he was currently eating at the shelter, and a collar with my name and phone number on the dog tag. I went online and ordered a leash, harness, and a 50 foot lead because I was planning to take him to fields to run around.

Once the day came to take my baby boy home, I started to let him get used to my house first. He hid in his cage for the first half an hour, but then he came out and started to come up to me and actually started to play with me. Dusk and I had lots of fun together. We played in my backyard, I took him on 2 walks a day, I took him to fields to play fetch and run around. I tried to take him to the dog park once, but he was way too scared of other dogs so I didn’t force him to.

After a year of having Dusk, I went to a dog training school to get my dog training license. After 6 months of school I finally got my license. I was happy because I could finally start my business that I’ve wanted since I was 15. I started a website and did everything that I needed to do to get a business started. I won’t bore you with the details.

I mainly do obedience, behavioral, and trick training and I stated so on my website. After a few days of having my website up, I finally got a call from a woman. Her name was Emily. She had a border collie and I was actually pretty happy about that because border collies are one of the easiest dogs to train and this was my first time training a dog with my new business. Her border collie was named Oreo. Oreo was a boy who was 6 months old. Emily called me for the basic few things to strain your dog first which are leave it, stay, the dog’s name, and come here. I went to her house and she watched me train, and she said that I was the best trainer that she has ever seen. According to her, she used to have another dog, but every trainer she got she didn’t like, so she decided to try to train the dog herself, but wasn’t very successful. That dog died a year prior to getting Oreo.

On the first training session, I taught Oreo his name first. Once he seemed okay with that, I moved on to come. Oreo was having some trouble with that one, but after about 10 minutes, he started to come without any meat. I then moved onto stay, and he did really good with that one. I then went back to his name, and he forgot that one a little, but after a few minutes he remembered. I then went over everything else we did that session, and after an hour, it was over. Since it was the first session, I like to charge 50% off, so she gave me $50. $100 may seem like a lot for a dog training session, but it’s a private class so it’s actually very cheap.

After 3 weeks of training Oreo, he knew a lot. He knew his name, how to come, how to leave it, how to take it, how to sit, how to stay, how to roll over, jump, crawl, high five, and speak. Eventually, Emily had more hours at work and couldn’t be home as much as she used to and Oreo started to come to my house to train. I actually saw this as an opportunity to train Oreo in a new environment. First thing I wanted to do though was to get Oreo comfortable with Dusk. Since I had Dusk for a year at that point, he was really good with other dogs, he sometimes even liked to play with random dogs we saw on walks. As soon as I brought Oreo in however, Dusk started to viciously bark and growl as Oreo. I was shocked. Even when Dusk didn’t like other dogs, he would never bark or even growl at them. He would just whine, put his ears back and tuck his tail in.

“Dusk, no.” I told Dusk this in a neutral manner because I figured it might just be the fact that a dog he didn’t know was in his home. I did find it weird though because when I brought home a cat Dusk loved him. I chalked it up to the fact that they were both dogs. After half an hour however, Dusk didn’t calm down, so I was forced to bring him outside. I opened the sliding glass door that leads to my backyard and had to pull him out because he wasn’t even reacting to a word I said.

Once Dusk was outside, I started to train Oreo. After an hour, we were done with our training session. Emily said she wouldn’t be home until 7:00 p.m. and I finish around 6:00. So for an hour Oreo and I played together and cuddled. Oreo always wanted to cuddle with me every training session but I never could because that would take away training time. But since we have an hour left, I decided that I would cuddle with him. The whole time however, Dusk didn’t stop barking at all. Only when Emily came to pick up Oreo did Dusk stop barking.

Once Oreo left with Emily, I let Dusk back in. I felt bad for leaving him outside, but there wasn’t anything else I could do. I wouldn’t have been able to train Oreo with Dusk inside. I made it up to Dusk by giving him his favorite treat; dog ice cream with a smear of peanut butter on top.

After a few times of Oreo coming over for training, Dusk never calmed down. He actually only got more vicious the more Oreo came to my house. One day when Emily came to pick up Oreo, she saw my cat walk by.

“Oh my God you have a cat!” she said with excitement. “Can I pet him?”

“Of course!”

Emily proceeded to kneel down to my cat’s level and pet him.

“Can I take a picture of him?”

“Go ahead.” I didn’t see a reason why not. My cat, named Basil, was very adorable. He was a long hair domestic. He was all white with the exception of his tail, which was a dark grey.

“Your cat is so adorable!”

“Thank you.”

A few seconds after she took the picture of Basil, Basil walk right out the front door. Basil was an outside cat and he liked to explore the town every night around this time.

“Oh, does your cat always go outside?”

“Yeah. He loves to explore the neighborhood. Everyone here loves him.”

“Okay, okay. that’s good then.”

I didn’t understand why it was such a good thing, but I digress.

“Yeah, I guess so. Okay, well. Have a good night Emily.”

“You too!”

That night was the last night I ever saw Basil. The next morning, I woke up expecting a meow from outside my front door, but there wasn’t one. I figured that he fell asleep somewhere around the neighborhood as he’s done that before.

Later that day, Emily called me saying that she is going on a business trip for 2 days and asked me if Oreo could stay at my house while she was away. I told her that I would, even though I knew Dusk wouldn’t be happy about it.

It was 6:00 p.m. and Basil still hadn’t shown up. I was very worried about him. I was on my couch trying to think what happened to him when the doorbell rings. It was Emily and Oreo. Emily had a bag for Oreo with his dog food, his food and water bowl, his toys, and his bed. I took the bag from her and told her to have a safe trip. I then brought Oreo in and shut the door behind me. Dusk was barking from my backyard, even more viciously than he had before. I ignored it though. I felt bad for Dusk, so I wasn’t going to keep him outside all night. I was just going to have Oreo upstairs most of the night.

I decided to put Oreo’s bed and bowls in my room so I could keep an eye on him. After I set everything up in my room, Oreo and I started training. After an hour, I took Oreo upstairs to my room and shut the door. I then let Dusk inside. I was planning to play and cuddle with him, but right when I opened the sliding door just enough for him to squeeze through, he burst upstairs and started to bark and scratch at my bedroom door. I didn’t want to bring him back outside, but I knew I had to. I made his dog house as comfortable as possible.

“I’m sorry bud, but I can’t have you barking like this inside all night.” I said this as I put him in his dog house.

Oreo and I played and cuddled together for a few hours before I got tired and decided that it was time for bed. I did my nightly routine of showering, brushing my teeth, putting on my pajamas, and going to bed.

In the middle of the night, I woke up to some vicious growling from the foot of my bed. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I realized that it was Oreo. Oreo was staring directly at me.

“What’s the matter boy?” I said in a whisper. This only made him start to bark. In a flash, Oreo ripped my blanked off and bit down into my calf. His teeth dug deeper than I thought was possible. I screamed in pain. When Oreo pulled his teeth out, a huge chunk of flesh ripped off. I screamed even louder. Oreo then charged at me, but I blocked him with my arm. That didn’t stop Oreo. Oreo proceeded to bite three of my fingers and rip them off. I never knew a human could feel so much pain. Oreo then bit through my shirt and bit off a big chunk of my belly. And as if that wasn’t enough, he then lunged for my face. I held him back the my hands, one of which now only had 2 fingers. Oreo started chomping and growling, trying to get to my neck to finished me off. I remember thinking, “This is how I die. From dog that I was dog sitting attacking me.” I was terrified for me life.

I began to lose all of the strength in my arms when I heard something. Another dog barking in my house. It was Dusk. I heard Dusk running up the stairs, barking like he never barked before. I had a small sense of hope that I might live. But that hope was instantly killed when I realized that my bedroom door was shut.

I heard barking and banging at my bedroom door from Dusk as he desperately tried to open the door. I then heard the bark fade into my hallway.

“Dusk has given up on me.” I thought to myself. All of a sudden I heard the barking start to come closer again. Before I knew it, Dusk, my 1 year old dog, somehow managed to break down my bedroom door. Dusk ran and jumped on Oreo from his side. I then fell off my bed. I instantly took what’s left of my shirt and wrapped it around my open stomach to stop whatever bleeding I could. I then took my pants off and did the same for my leg.

Dusk and Oreo were trying to bite one another while Dusk was on top of Oreo. Oreo managed to bite down on Dusk’s leg. I tried to get up to help Dusk, but since my leg had a giant hole in it and so did my stomach, I couldn’t even move. I sat there watching my dog fight the dog that I have trained for 6 months without a clue of what he was capable of. Oreo let go of Dusk’s leg and Dusk fell to his side. Dusk still didn’t give up though.

He tried to get up, but when he did, Oreo jumped on his side, making them both fall off of my bed and by my feet. I then remembered that I kept my phone on my nightstand which was right next to me. All I had to do was just somehow reach up to get it. I reached up my left hand to get my phone, but sitting up requires the abdominal muscle, and mine were currently on my bed. I used my right hand, or what’s left of my right hand, to push me up just enough for me to grab my phone off my nightstand. I then dialed 911. As I was waiting for an operator to answer, I looked over to Dusk and Oreo. Oreo bit a lot more than Dusk did. Oreo bit Dusk in the leg, his tail, his snout, and bit half of his left ear off. Oreo only got his leg bitten by Dusk. Dusk was still trying, even though he couldn’t stand up too well.

The 911 operator then answered. I told her everything that was going on and she said that she’d send police and an ambulance right away.

Oreo then bit Dusk in the stomach and ripped out a chunk of flesh, just as he did for me. Dusk could barely move, but then Dusk somehow got the strength to, while laying on his side, bite Oreo’s neck, pull Oreo down closer to him, and rip out half of Oreo’s neck. Oreo fell and died right then and there. I then somehow managed to crawl to Dusk and pet him. I tried to comfort him as much as I could. Dusk died seconds after that. I cried my eyes out.

Soon after the police and paramedics showed up. All I remember are people rushing in my room, and then I passed out. I woke up in the Hospital. My whole torso was wrapped up and so was my leg and right hand. I didn’t feel any pain because I was numbed. A doctor soon came in and told me that he has no idea how I was still alive. Apparently, I died 4 times in the ambulance and 6 times during surgery, but they somehow saved me. I couldn’t thank them enough.

After 6 months of being in the hospital and recovering, I finally was all set to leave.

Once I got home, 2 police officers knocked on my door. They explained everything that happened;

Apparently Emily was actually one of the best dog trainers in the world, but what she trained her dogs was different. Emily trained Oreo to attack people and how to attack them. She could just show Oreo a picture of what she wanted dead and the dog would kill them.

“That is how your cat went missing.” said one of the officers. ” “Emily would say to Oreo, ‘attack’ and he would destroy it.”

“Officer, I have a question.” I told the officer. “If Emily needed a picture of the person to attack and needed to tell Oreo when to, then, how did I get attacked?”