I killed my MIL's dog. It was an accident of sorts and I certainly don't feel guilty or ashamed. I'm sorry her dog died. Just like I'd be sorry if her dog was run over because she refuses to leash him. But that's about it.
SO1's mum and I haven't had any problems in about five years. When I first came around she made the false assumption that I was a gold digger. Given SO1's history and my complete lack of interest in him I didn't really care at the time. I tolerated SO1 to keep SO2 in my life in the beginning, which changed a long while ago. The only other serious issues we've had involved a misunderstanding about her daughter which was cleared up and when her mum died she completely lost her mind on me. She apologised and I accepted her apology.
Onto the accused canine murder! MIL has three small dogs in her house. A chi-poo, a jack-a-poo and a pomapoo. They're not trained. I don't like to say I hate people's dogs. In reality I feel sorry for them because their lives would be so much more enjoyable and less anxiety ridden if she took the time to train them and stopped treating them like people. I'm a firm believer that dogs aren't people and can't thrive happily when treated like such.
By not trained I mean they bark whenever somebody drives down their street insanely. They are barely house broken. They fight each other constantly. They each have their own owner (or mate) and are violently obsessive over them. If MIL has her pomapoo in her lap or by her feet and ANYBODY or ANYTHING gets near her the dog will attack you. Same thing goes for FIL and his chi-poo. The jack-a-poo belongs to SIL who is in her ignoring her home life teen years and is never there. When you walk into their house it's an attack of wild barking and jumping on you. When DS was a baby I launched the jack-a-poo (who can jump as high as a standard jack russell) across the room with my knee to keep him from jumping into my baby carrying arms. Since then the dogs have been locked up when I'm invited over. Long story short they are very obsessive, anxious, loud, aggressive little dogs.
The rule since the jack-a-poo launch was that if I'm over or DS is over the dogs are to be locked out of the main living space and any other area that DS or I may be in. When it comes to DS it's a safety issue. When it comes to me it's a "I'm not being mauled or having my clothes torn to shreds because you can't train your dogs" issue. I grew up with large dogs. I have a small dog. I'm not anti-dog.
Thursday evening MIL called and asked if we'd all like to come over for lunch this Sunday. I explained her son had a job Sunday and that SO2 and I were planning on having our regular sitter come over and watch DS in the afternoon so we could try this new tea house together. She asked if she could watch DS instead, nicely of course. Since it's on the way to the tea house I said sure. She's watched DS more than a few times before, always by choice. I don't believe we've ever asked her to. It's not abnormal and she's not pushy. She always invites all of us and usually one of us attends. She knows our rule about the dogs. We all enforce it and we've never been given any reason to assume she doesn't.
She watched DS through his two hour evening nap and then an extra thirty to forty minutes afterwards. When SO2 and I arrived to pick him up in the early evening I got to the door first. I walked into the sitting room and saw two of the three dogs blocked out of the main floor living space. They were barking and losing their minds because I'd come into the house. By the time I thought "where's the chi-poo?!" I heard DS scream from the other side of the house. I blasted through the kitchen, through the dining room and into the family room before MIL turned away from the kitchen sink. I'm not really sure if my feet touched the goddamn ground. I bursts through the SHUT doors blocking MIL from DS and there's this black chi-poo on top of my two year old LATCHED onto his FACE! To be clear, not just his face. He's bitten down on his right eye - the far outer corner but I can't see this. I can't see his eye. I can just see my screaming red faced son and with a maw biting down and holding onto his eye.
I'm wearing cloth loafers. We call them my hippy shoes. They're like TOMS but have a wide boat front and high sides. No real sole no structure beyond stitching. I run up and kick the dog off of him. I probably should've grabbed its muzzle with both hands and forced him to release, but I saw a small dog biting my sons eye and all logic left me. I don't mean logic as in what's best for the dog. I mean I could've caused more damaged to DS by kicking the dog off of him. I kicked him with my toes like a soccer ball a good three and half feet away where he thudded against the leg of an end table, I think. I snatched up DS about the time MIL came into the room. She ran towards the dog and I ran to the bathroom to wash DS's bloody face to see how damaged it was.
I didn't speak to her. I just ran to the car and put him in his car seat and asked SO2 to ride in the back with him to try to calm him down and keep him from touching his wounds. DS was taken to an afterhours clinic because his eye wasn't damaged (that I could see) but I needed a doctor to tell me that. He has puncture marks above and below his eye and on the very bottom of lower eye lid. No stitches. Just lots of washing.
Dog died. I answered a phone call on my cars sync system that I thought was SO1 while driving. It was MIL and she was sobbing and screaming that she was calling the police on me. I murdered her baby. She won't rest until she has every cent that at least belonged to her. That last bit is about her mother passing. I was in her mother's will while she wasn't. I just hung up, pulled over blocked her number from ringing and texting my cell phone. SO2 went about calling my number to fill my voice mail box up so she couldn't leave messages.
Both SO1 and SO2 are supportive of our completely ignoring MIL for the time being. We haven't discussed the probable CO because SO1 wants me to apologise once MIL calms down and apologises to me. I don't believe she's going to apologise and I'm so enraged every time I see DS's black bloodied eye he can't open I can't help but think of doing things to her that would land me in prison. Not so much about apologising to her in the future.
Am I insane? Am I blinded by rage? Should I say I sorry that he dog died because he was ejected from my sons eyeball? I can't imagine this is going to get better. We have an appointment with an eye doctor in two days. The clinic doctor said his eye looked like it wasn't damaged. I sent pictures to his ped and he said he couldn't really see much because of the level of swelling, which had increased since the clinic visit. He recommended taking him to this eye doctor he knows just to be sure and told me what to look for if his eye had been damaged. I still just want to run to the ER and sit there until somebody assures me seven times that my baby is okay.
*editted to correct crazy symbols*