River Song's Tales From Rainbow Bridge: Containing Rampage

I am not as accomplished an angel as Foley, but I am trying. I have to take on the most challenging cases to do this, but sometimes I lick more than I can taste.

That was the case when I answered a prayer request for the parents of a pitbull named Rampage. A puppy, who had only been with his family for two months, he was living up to his name by destroying furniture, remotes, and anything else his mouth could find. 

Rampage’s parents loved him, but he destroyed something else every time they returned home. They tried confining him to one room, and he gnawed at the door until he was free. They put him in a crate, and he chewed the metal, pried it apart, then celebrated by eating an end table.

Next, they tried a dog behaviorist, and Rampage did everything the trainer asked, but there were two of the most important things during the sessions: Treats and attention. When he was home alone and got neither of those things, he became anxious, and like with all dogs, anxiety means destruction.

Stumped, Rampage’s parents turned to the final tactic of the desperate: Prayer. They hoped for a miracle and were sent a Griffon.

I met with Rampage in his dreams. Even then, he could not settle down long enough to talk. This dog dreamed fast. I asked him why he was destroying the house, and he said he was so worried about his parents that he escaped his enclosure to look outside for them, and when they weren’t there, he relied on his coping technique, which was to destroy.

It is what I felt like when I was alone, and I thought his reaction was perfectly reasonable. It was obvious that Rampage could not be left alone.

I checked the family finances and discovered they did not have the money to pay for a sitter or a daycare. He could not be left alone; he would breach any fence and run through the zapping sensation of an electric fence violation.

I was stumped, then I called a meeting of other angels who lived in the neighborhood and discovered that a senior woman had recently lost a dog and was lonely. A few dream visits, and persistent persuasion, put the senior and the parents together. Soon the solution presented itself. Rampage’s parents dropped him at the woman’s place when they left and picked him up on the way home. Everyone was satisfied with the result.

And Foley told me I did a good job and that meant the most of all.