Fight or Flight
This morning Argon and Sam mercifully let me sleep in until 6 am before they started stepping on me and snuggling (Argon) and biting at my arms in order to wake me up (Sam, sigh). Since E has been away all weekend, I dragged myself out of bed and dutifully took them on an extra long walk. Why extra long? Because I made a promise to E that I would walk them more over the weekend as penance for a week free of the gym. Okay, so it's been more like two weeks. Exercise has gotten pretty bad around here.
Anyway, we rounded the corner onto a street a flew blocks down from our house that I had walked down before a couple times. It was quiet, and I had two full poo bags in one hand and two leashes in the other.
Suddenly, I heard a dog bark and a man yell at it. They were hidden behind a truck and a fence so I didn't think much of it.
And then!!
This comes running out into the middle of the street.
A pitbull. On the smaller side, but still twice as big and as tall as Sam and Argon. My puny little red haired dogs looked about as shocked as I was. And of course the only thought that popped into my head was the conversation with my coworker this past week about how pitbulls tend to have inborn aggression.
It took me about a second to realize that I had no hopes of outrunning this dog. So I grabbed both leashes and twisted them until my dogs were standing somewhat behind me. The dog had not moved, so we were at a standstill about five feet apart in the middle of the road. If she lunged, I planned to wing around and block the doggies with my legs, and then pick them up like footballs to protect their furry lives. I pondered whether I had the courage to kick a dog in self-defense.
It also occurred to me that I was wearing shorts. And my un-exercised legs probably tasted delicious.
The dog took one step forward and...
...headed to the other side of the street to pee. The owner dude, who must've been moving as slow as any human being can possibly be, ambled over and lectured the dog a little while saying that she was harmless. Harmless! The dog looked ashamed. He apologized I graciously said, "That's okay!" And booked it out of there as fast as I could without drawing attention to myself.
No more long walks for this girl!
2 comments:
I have two dogs that weigh in at 70 lbs a piece. (and one is a pit bull). The first time I attempted to walk them both together an even larger Boxer ran across the street and attacked my dogs. Neither of mine bit back, but I did realize I had one chance to break up the fight and kicked the Boxer in the head as hard as I could. I never thought I would be able to do that, but it worked. I'm sure you would have done it to save your babies too.
Oh my goodness that's brave! I hope I would have that kind of courage. Argon has no front teeth so she really would've been powerless!
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