The fight

On the night of the milestone Tessa and Sampson proved they still had issues with each other.

I got home shortly after midnight and greeted Tessa in the kitchen then let Sampson out of his crate. He ran around and around, inside and outside then back inside. Inside he ran by Tessa several times and on one occasion she snapped at him and he snapped back. I believe in letting dogs fight it out for up to three seconds, anything beyond that could result in visits to the vet emergency room. I did what I could to intervene.
Sampson's pinch collar had fallen off in his crate so he was naked and impossible to grab. I got ahold of Tessa's collar but she wriggled out of my hold and slipped her head out of the collar. There was a lot of growling and snapping and saliva. I got between them, holding Tessa back by blocking her with one leg and without any success yelled for Sampson to sit. Tessa squirmed away from me and chased him under the kitchen table and into the sun room, I followed. I grabbed Tessa's hindquarters and pulled her back and away from Sampson but he continued to challenge her with growls and barks and bared teeth. He came at her with his teeth and bit at her face so I let her go, or she got away from me, I don't know which. I was hoping Tessa would get him pinned to the ground and calm him down by holding him, as I've seen her do frequently with unruly boys, but Sampson is too fast and too agile. He kept getting away. When the biting began to really scare me I left them for the sink to grab some water to throw on them.
By the time I turned around to toss it at them the had stopped, standing side by side and both slouched and panting. I yelled for Sampson to go outside and after I got him out there I turned around and tossed the water at Tessa's face, "you idiot! What was that all about?" She kept panting and panting. I looked her over and she seemed fine so I let Sampson back inside. I ran a clean paper towel over each of them looking for blood but saw none.
The next morning I called the vet and made an appointment for Tessa after observing that the brow over her right eye was scratched and swollen and the white of that eye solid red. Before the appointment the two dogs shared space without incident but Tessa did make a couple of moves that worried me. My vet consulted me on how to make the situation easier to deal with. She spent an hour talking it over with me. (Pet Vets in Oak Park...they are the BEST!!!)
Then I had to call my soon to be ex husband and explain the whole thing to him. I felt like a single mom having to call her baby's daddy and tell him of an accident that occurred on my watch. Remember Kramer vs. Kramer? He was incredibly understanding about it. "You would've been yelled at if I had gone home and found her beaten up without explanation." As hard as I thought it was going to be, it was easier to tell him about the fight now that we're where we are. It was harder to talk to him about this stuff when we were married.