I adopted Marcus Aurelius a year ago today. I had fostered for two years, but he wasn’t a foster fail. I adopted him based on a picture I saw on the Bad Ass Animal Rescue instagram. His face reminded me of my last foster dog, Goose. I got Goose adopted by a couple who lived in my building. I have gotten all my foster dogs adopted through connections. Between fostering and being the dog whisperer of adoptions, I felt ready for the general.

I noticed three things about Marcus right away. He never sat down. He was really hard to walk. And he jumped on everyone he came into contact with. At his first vet appointment, the vet told me she could tell he was a good dog and that he would calm down. Fair enough. I had fostered enough to know the transition isn’t smooth and it can take months before their true personality emerges. I was hoping for less psychotic and a little more bubbly down the road.

My vet called me a day later to tell me Marcus had heart-worm. Heart-worm is caused by a mosquito bite. Dogs are natural hosts, humans are not. The rescue had tested him and he was negative, but the disease can incubate for up to 6 months. It happens.

Treatment is a course of 3 injections spread out over 6 months, no exercise, heavy sedation and a crate-to-curb existence. It was the beginning of summer, I had bike rides to organize, vacation plans to make and a new boyfriend to find. I could give him back, find someone to take care of him during his treatment, or bull-doze through.

I had dogs before I had kids—beagles no less. If you can survive having a beagle (note: I did not say training) then you have a reasonable shot at parenting. I have two sons. I was bound by two things, maternal instinct and the near impossibility of giving them back, so I kept my kids.

But I didn’t birth Marcus, I barely knew him, we hadn’t bonded and I suspected that at the end of this process he might just be an asshole. And I could give him back. But I am a bull dozer.

I held out high hopes for the drugs. I could do one, lazy, no vacation, summer. We could lay on the couch and watch TV, his head in my lap, talk shopping and all things small, furry and ultimately chase-able.

Except, Marcus wasn’t really capable of being sedated. It happens.

I took him the vet handling his first of three injections. After witnessing our interaction in the waiting room, he told me not to worry—that the first thing he could do for me, for Marcus and for everyone who had the misfortune of being around us, is sedate him. I explained that this was Marcus sedated. They tripled his dose. It made no difference. On the way home from the first injection, I Googled What is the human dose for Trazodone?

I talked non-stop about whether I should give him up while I hired a trainer to keep his mind busy and his aggression low during the no-exercise period. I was in touch with the rescue, talked to other pit bull owners, read books, looked at videos and called my twin brother a lot. I was in it and doing what had to be done—but every day was like a root canal.

Almost unanimously people told me to give him back. No one actually told me to keep him. They said only I could make that decision but mentioned self-care and my quality of life a lot. Not a single, definitive, straight up, you need to keep him.

When I am in doubt, I consult the oracle, the person who is most like me in stubbornness and emotional depth. She asked me if I signed a contract to get Marcus. I said I did. She asked if I signed using my name. I said I did. And she said, Then shut the fuck up.

Ironically, when we were done with treatment—he could technically go to park, run around and be um, a dog—he torn his nail down to the nail bed. On the way to the vet, one of his back legs locked up and he started whimpering but then it quickly passed. The vet wrapped the nail, put a cone on him and said he should rest for two weeks.

On the way out, I told her about the weird thing with his back leg that had resolved itself but that had caused Marcus—the unstoppable—to stop. She looked his leg and said she couldn’t be sure without x-rays, but he probably had a luxating patella (dislocated kneecap). If it was that and it continued and it caused him pain, he may need surgery and then—wait for it—eight weeks of rest. That was not happening.

I emailed the rescue on the way home from the vet and told them I was done. It was right after Thanksgiving and with the holidays coming up, it would take a few weeks to find him a foster. When we got home, I took the cone off him and threw it away. I grabbed his massive jaw, looked him straight in the eye and said I think you broke me. I took a Trazodone and cried myself to sleep.

The next morning, I taped his nail and took him to park. Done resting. Done with by the book. He was a mad man. Jumped on everybody, played roughly and didn’t respond to any commands at all. I tried to make new friends before they figured out he was my dog.

Dog park people are fully committed dog people. It is not like they didn’t think he should be in Juvie, but they were working from the premise that he was a good dog who had yet to find his way. I suddenly remembered two things my sister told me. Trust your kids before they give you a reason not to and parent the kid you have, not the one you wished you had.

At that moment, Marcus came over. I did not call him. We didn’t have a moment where our eyes meet and we recommitted to our relationship. I didn’t give him a treat. But he did sit down—next to me. It totally happened.

I got up the next day and went to the park first thing and then again at 5pm. On the mornings I worked, I took him out in the wee hours, came back at lunch for a long walk and then the dog park again at 5 pm. He had a minimum of 2 hours of park time every day. He was a ground-and-pound brawler. Walks did not seem to tire him out but he was always the last man standing in Thunder dome. I had to wrestle him off other dogs to get him back on the leash— but he was happy as shit. It still wasn’t much a life for me, but I got a serious chuckle out of him.

I made friends at the dog park. They all dug Marcus. It helps that he is a full-ass wiggler when he says hello, sometimes knocking himself over. And the other dogs? They loved him. Even dogs that did not play well with other dogs played well with Marcus. Pretty soon, he had a girlfriend and a boyfriend.

I made a few not friends too. I told everyone our story and scared the shit out of new dog owners who though their dogs would suddenly test positive for heartworm. And Marcus still jumped—despite hours of training. Not a lot, but every now and then, he met someone who read mauling. And he is a big. And a pit bull and it can be a lot.

One woman yelled at me and I was instantly brought back to my feelings of being in lockdown with him: shame, guilt, resentment, fury. But I also felt protective and generally pissed off at the notion that she might not like him. That was new.

I wanted to explain to her everything he had been through—the size of the needles, how much pain he seemed to be in after, how the drugs seemed to not work and chip away at him instead, and how spent he spent hours looking out the window.

I realized everything I wanted to tell her about Marcus was from what I think is his perspective—not about how much it cost me, how much I gave up, how short he fell from my expectations.

My youngest asked me the other day if I had to go back and do it again would I keep Marcus? I said I have to be honest about how touch and go it was and how close I came to giving him away. But now, from the other side, I am crazy about him. How I feel about him is different than how I have felt about any other dog I have had or fostered. If I never knew this feeling, it would be heart breaking.

As I write this it is pouring rain and not yet noon. I have been out with Marcus two times already and had to change my clothes both times. The second time we met up with his girlfriend and I got to hang out with my friends. I am leaving soon to go see a movie with Goose’s mom. When I get back I have to finish organizing a BBQ with the dog park peeps (hot dogs without the dogs) and take Marcus out for a long walk.

I have my life back, I have my dog. It happens.