10/13/2025
This post is directed toward anyone who has come to our church’s page to inquire about Gromit, a dog owned by the church’s minister, Imre Golden. (I, Imre, am writing these words.) While many people have come to post comments expressing their outrage over my decision to surrender Gromit to Amador County Animal Control, a few have reached out to me via Messenger to ask for my side of the story. This message is for them.
I took in Gromit as a foster in late March of this year. I had recently lost a dog, Max, earlier that month after he developed a very large mass on his liver and had to be put down for his own benefit. Abra Harris, a volunteer with Jazzy’s Legacy and a member of this congregation, urged me to take Gromit, thinking that he would be a good fit. I wasn’t ready for a new dog yet, but she was persistent, and I reluctantly agreed to take him in.
Gromit was an energetic and friendly little fellow right from the start. Like all dogs in a new environment, he was somewhat cautious, but he settled in well and, most importantly to me at the time, got along great with my other dog, Dolce. She was also enthusiastic toward him, because she is a social dog and was missing Max.
Gromit lived with Dolce and me on the church’s property, a five-acre parcel in the unincorporated part of Amador County near the casino. There is a lot of room to explore, and Gromit enjoyed the sights and sounds of the foothills. After an initial introductory period during which I walked him around the property on leash, I began letting him outside off leash to see if he would stay with Dolce and me as we wandered the property for exercise and potty breaks. Initially, this practice was successful, and Gromit would come when called and generally stayed near Dolce and me; however, as his confidence grew, he started to ignore my calls. (I knew that his hearing was fine because he could hear a bag of chips being opened from the next room.) On one occasion, he bolted into the brush after he caught the sight, sound, or scent of something and didn’t return until two hours later. After that, I kept him on leash all the time when outside. He still managed to escape a couple of times, though. The church has a small, fenced yard that had adequately contained the other three dogs I have owned while living on this property, but Gromit proved to be the exception; he found a weak spot and managed to force himself through it, cutting and scarring his nose and face in the process. (This compulsion to get what he wanted would manifest itself in an uglier way, which I will get to shortly.) As with his previous adventure, he returned on his own about two hours later.
In spite of his propensity to run off when able and his being a bit more boisterous than I was used to, I adopted Gromit during April or May (I don’t remember which). The matter was handled electronically, and I do not remember any details from the contract itself. (I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which impairs episodic memory, so it is not unusual for me to forget things that are not routine experiences. [EDIT: this condition does not absolve me from any contractual conditions I agreed to. I only mention it to explain my thought process more fully.]) I also didn’t give it much thought because I had adopted a dog from a rescue three times previously, and everything had always gone smoothly.
As I mentioned earlier, Gromit was energetic. I had initially had reservations about taking in a dog who was believed to be seven to eight years old, because I was afraid he would not be able to walk at the same pace which Dolce (who was four at the time I got Gromit) was accustomed to. To my surprise, he kept up just fine and pulled almost as hard on his leash as she did, and we walked every day, weather permitting.
Gromit liked every human and every dog he encountered during the entire six months I had him. I introduced him to everyone at the church, and he was almost always a perfect gentleman. (His only vices were jumping up on people with excitement, a practice I prevented by keeping his leash taut during introductions, and grabbing treats too eagerly, a habit which improved with time and training.) Similarly, he was always friendly toward my neighbors’ dogs, and we frequently walked with neighbors and their dogs. He never had the slightest conflict with any canine. Other animals, however, were a different matter entirely.
Most dogs I’ve known tend to chase things like squirrels, birds, etc., and Gromit was no different in that respect, but that’s a harmless tendency because few dogs actually catch those creatures. I wasn’t prepared for how he reacted to non-canines he got close to. I used to feed my neighbor’s horse, Freebie, a carrot during walks. Max had developed a bond with Freebie; the two of them greeted each other nose to nose, and Max frequently slipped under the fence and stood beside her in case any stray pieces of carrot fell out of her mouth. I was curious to see how Gromit would react to her. The first time Freebie leaned over the fence, he immediately lunged for her nose! I reacted in time to keep him from getting her, but he was unphased. He lunged several more times, and I had to forcefully hold his leash to keep him from her. I pulled him away and continued the walk, shaken and baffled; it was the first sign of aggression I had ever seen in him!
I considered that he might have reacted so strongly because he had never met a horse before, so I decided to try again the next day, but more slowly. The result was the same. I tried a couple more times, but the results got worse, not better; on the last occasion, as I was pulling Gromit away from the fence, he actually jumped up and bit me on the arm – not once, but several times! (The bites were medically insignificant because Gromit’s front teeth were worn down so severely that they were just nubs. He still had good teeth at the back of his mouth.) I learned that this behavior is called “frustration aggression”; when a dog is restrained from getting something it intensely desires, it turns on the thing or person that is preventing it from obtaining it. Dogs that show no aggression under other circumstances may still exhibit this behavior.
This behavior became more prevalent as time went on. I had to exercise Gromit, because he was just too energetic to leave at home. At this point, I should have thought of getting a muzzle for him, but that option just wasn’t in my mind because I had never had to do that before. I found that he had a similar reaction (intense leash pulling) to other creatures we came across – cats, deer, rabbits, turkeys – and the same response when I held him back: jumping up and biting my arm multiple times to get me to let go of the leash. This behavior repeated itself at least a dozen times. On two occasions, he even did this to my neighbor with whom I was walking at the time, presumably because he was closer to her at the moment! (She let these incidents go because we are good friends and the bites were insignificant due to his teeth being so bad.) On a few occasions, I even had to pin him to the ground for a couple of minutes before the urge to bite me subsided. The last time I walked him, his bite just broke the skin because he got me with one of his back teeth. (These episodes all happened while I still had Dolce on her leash in my other hand, which added to the chaos.)
I should note that while this was going on, I did have a few casual conversations about Gromit with Abra. She asked how he was doing, and I told her on at least two occasions in the last month I had him that I was having a tough time. On both occasions, her response was something to the effect of, “Well, you just have to remember that he’s had a rough start in life,” essentially shutting down the conversation. That’s it! No offer of help or advice!
According to my research online, frustration aggression cannot be cured, only managed with intensive, long-term training, which I am not able to do with CFS. (It is a struggle for me to get ordinary things done while still functioning as a part-time minister.) I knew that I could not keep Gromit.
I want everyone to understand that this realization broke my heart. I loved Gromit, and I had intended to keep him until the end of his life or mine. I should have called Jazzy’s Legacy at this point, but I didn’t because I thought I might be shamed for rejecting an animal I had adopted, and I really didn’t think it would have been possible to legally rehome him anyway given what I had experienced with him. (If I am wrong about that, I’m sorry, Gromit! I failed you.) With that in mind, I decided to surrender him to the shelter. While I didn’t go there specifically to have him put down, I knew that that was the likely outcome considering his behavior. After speaking with staff about the circumstances that had brought me there, I elected to give him humane euthanasia.
If any of what I have done is civilly or criminally punishable, I accept those consequences. I am NOT trying to evade responsibility for anything I have done. All I want is to be judged for what I have done, not for what people are saying about me, and for people to realize that my sins (whatever they may be) are MINE, NOT the church’s! Leave my church alone!!!
