I have not done an entry in several days but had stuff going on and did not feel like writing really. I am only doing so tonight cause I think it may be therapuetic.

Saturday Jan 26th when my son and I arrived home we stopped next to Lincolns pen as is our regular thing to roll down the window and say hi when he comes running out wagging his tail. This time no piggy. First I thought he got out again and would be in the yard like last time but moments later we found terribly that was not the case at all.

A large pit bull had come in our yard and torn a hole in Lincolns pen and was in the process of attacking my baby when we pulled up. Lincoln had managed to get out of his pen and was over at the chicken coup crying and pushing on it as the dog was repeatedly biting him. He was not fighting back just trying to get away from the dog. We saw he had managed to get one of the chickens out of the coup and had killed it too. ...before or after or during the attack on Lincoln I do not know. My son threw stuff at the dog to get it to let go and chased it out of the yard. I knew it was bad and was horrified at how he looked when I sprayed off a good portion of the mud to see his injuries. I wont go into detail cause 1 it hurts to have to even think of writing it out and 2 cause I dont think it is needed to be graphic in order to get this on 'paper' as it were and to help me try to move on. Needless to say was bad.

I ended up getting him in the truck and we went to a vet clinic that was still open. 20 mins after we got there, they had cleaned him up but his injuries were so bad they sent us to a bigger large animal hosipital in Gainesville. So we drove all the way there to try and save his life. Took nearly an hour to get there and by then was dark and raining. I could barely concentrate on the road worried he would die in route. Once there, they examined him and gave me the sad news that the most kind thing to do would be to put him to sleep. That with his injuries would be thousands of $$ in operations and that would be slim chance of fixing most of the damage and he would have chronic problems if he recovered. So 2 days after my baby turned 1 year old I had to say good bye to him.

I had never had to put an animal to sleep. It was very hard. Even harder was seeing him attacked like he was. I have had many animals my entire life and Never seen another animal just be mean like that dog was. He did not do it cause he was protecting his home or owners or cause he was hungry but just cause he wandered onto my property and saw something he wanted to kill. I hope I never have to see anything like that again.