Last year, a week after Christmas, my son, Joe, adopted a dog. He has been living in Las Vegas for nearly three years, has an apartment with a terrace in a complex with lots of space. Owning a dog seemed like a great idea. He visited a shelter and brought home a rescue dog, Snoop, a female pit bull. When he called to tell me, I was apprehensive. Pit bulls, along with several other breeds, have had a lot of bad press in New York. In fact, many of these large dogs are now banned from apartments run by the city’s Housing Authority. I was worried about Snoop being aggressive, possibly attacking or biting someone. A month later, I visited my son and was totally won over. Snoop is affectionate, playful, loyal, and a lot of fun.
We don’t know what Snoop’s life was like before my son adopted her. As a rescue dog, we assume that she had a tough time. Yet we are continually amazed at her good nature.
I thought a lot about Snoop while reading Oogy, Larry Levin’s beautiful story about the horribly abused dog that his family adopted. Police near Philadelphia found Oogy when staging a drug raid and brought the injured animal to the Ardmore Animal Hospital. Despite the extent of Oogy’s injuries—his left ear and much of the left side of his face had been torn off—doctors made the decision to save him. Everyone who came into contact with Oogy knew that this was a special dog. His injuries must have been excruciating, yet he was gentle and affectionate with those who approached him. When he stopped eating, a doctor discovered that a piece of Oogy’s jawbone had become lodged in the roof of his mouth. One can only imagine the intense pain the poor pup must have felt each time he bit down. Again, he never gave any indication of his discomfort.
AAH’s medical staff saved Oogy’s life, but then he needed a family. Diane Klein, the hospital administrator, immediately thought of Larry Levin, his wife, Jennifer, and their twin sons, Dan and Noah. The Levins first encountered Oogy when they were at AAH with their ailing 14 year-old cat, Buzzy. “The right side of him was adorable,” Levin writes about Oogy, “but the left side of his face was all flamingo pink scar tissue; it looked as if it had melted.” Oogy’s appearance did not deter the family. “We fell instantly and completely in love with him,” Levin says.
When he was admitted to AAH, Oogy was identified as a pit bull or pit bull mix. Later on, Levin discovers that Oogy is, in fact, a Dogo Argentina, a fairly rare breed of dog in the U.S. Like pit bulls, the Dogos were often trained to fight. Reading Oogy’s story is at times painful. The AAH doctors speculate that Oogy, only a few months old, was used as bait to train other dogs to fight. How and why he survived is anyone’s guess. Perhaps the police staged the raid at the right time, saving Oogy’s life. (Drugs sales and dog fights often go hand in hand). No matter the reason, the Levins were determined to keep Oogy safe and make sure he would never again suffer abuse.
For Larry, caring for Oogy became a journey of discovery, similar to what he experienced as a father to Dan and Noah. Like Oogy, the twins came to the Levins through adoption and that fact seems to bring the entire family closer. Larry is so protective of Oogy that he often tries to anticipate and head off anything that might cause the dog to suffer. And he berates himself when he discovers that he has missed one of Oogy’s signals of distress. From the very beginning, Oogy resisted being placed in a crate when alone in the house. Later, a trainer tells Larry that the dog associates being in a confined space with having his ear ripped off. “I felt awful that, even inadvertently, I had caused Oogy some fear,” he writes. “I should have known by his incessant barking that something was amiss, but I had not understood the reason.”
The trainer, who came to the Levins highly recommended by a good friend, claimed that she could talk to animals. She spent time eye-to-eye with Oogy, softly speaking to him. “When the trainer lifted her head after her discussion was complete, her eyes were brimming with tears,” Levin writes. “`Oogy wants you to know,’ she said, ‘how much he appreciates the love and respect you’ve shown him.’”
The Levins wondered whether Oogy really did communicate with her or whether she was just expressing her own feelings about what this loving family had done for this special dog. In the end, it hardly matters. Larry and his family know that Oogy loves and trusts them, and, in return, this big, white dog continues to inspire everyone he meets. His story is one of surviving adversity, overcoming incredible odds, learning to love and trust again, and, most of all, coming together as a family. And those lessons are ones we can all embrace, especially at this time of year.
Oogy: The Dog Only a Family Could Love
By Larry Levin
Grand Central Publishing
