The Beginning of Strange Happenings
Even though Sophie wasn’t scared of her dog, she tried to be very careful, especially in the early days of bringing him in. Sophie watched her newest family member very closely throughout the first week and believed there was no cause for alarm. His interaction with baby Emma seemed pretty normal.
She was enjoying Max’s company in the yard as they played together like they usually do. Sophie and her husband were still there to observe, and this time something seemed off. It was amusing to watch, but still, they couldn’t ignore that the atmosphere wasn’t just the same.
However, since Sophie was already comfortable with Max being a member of the family and she hasn’t noticed anything unstable or unusual about him yet, Sophie didn’t stop Emma and Max from playing their game, but she continued to watch over them.
Slowly, the tension in the atmosphere was relieved as Sophie’s thoughts now focused on how Max’s new friendship with Emma can provide healing for him from his disturbing past experiences. But she was suddenly caught in her optimistic thoughts when Max did the unbelievable. He grabbed the baby and slammed her on the floor.
For almost 30 seconds, Sophie was petrified. Even though she knew that by the nature and experiences of the dog, he was very likely to portray violent behavior, but she thought this environment had given him enough support to get through that. At that moment, there were different bursts of emotion from Sophie. She was terrified and angry.
In the heat of everything, Sophie still thought to herself that this behavior was too strange and sudden, and it couldn’t simply be a reaction to unstable thoughts from Max. Max had truly won her heart, and she believed he genuinely cared for Emma, so she saw no reason why he would want to hurt her.
She was so shocked she was unable to move for a while, just watching the happenings unfold. One would think that a mother’s first instinct would be to jump right on the dog and pull out her daughter. But everything seemed so confusing and scary. It was as if after she watched Max react that way for the first time, the scene continued to replay in her head over and over again.
Sophie thought to herself, “it’s just a reaction, he’s going to stop soon.” But Max didn’t, and this torture only just started.
