The paths at the smaller dog park are really narrow compared to the older dog park where we just started to go sometimes.
I’m not the hot mess I used to be, doodling along with the dogs running circles around my feet and trying to kill me. No–I hold them in one hand or the other and they gravitate to that side. We’re easy to see, I have the spare hand available to short leash them, and while they’re not particularly well behaved, they do understand I’m not going to let them go until we pass whatever it is they want to bark at and we just keep going.
I listen to audiobooks while I walk, and while I try to stay alert, the girl jogging behind me was lithe and fleet of foot. Seeing that the dogs were on my right, she swung around wide to my left to run around me and stay on pace.
And Johnny the shitty little coward saw his opening.
He swung behind me hard, pulling my arm around my back and leaping for this intruder who dared to try to flank me.
He leapt and I yanked on the leash from behind my back (shoulder still aches) and his halter, stopping him in mid-air, right before he was about to land on and possibly bite this poor jogger whose only crime was being quiet and considerate. (I do understand that in creepy-little-dog land, this means she was sneaking, yes, a SNEAKER, who was going to attack me, but we live in EVERYBODY-needs-to-use-the-park land, where if you are trotting neatly alongside your human, it is very bad form to run behind them and try to kill everybody involved.)
He went flying backwards–in mid-air mind you–and landed on his back, all four paws folded neatly on his stomach, staring at the sky in utter confusion.
I stared at him in horror.
He’d been an inch–an inch–away from landing on this poor jogger. I was mortified–oh my God. If he’d bitten her? SO MUCH BAD. Including maybe having to put this damned dog down for sheer stinking stupidity.
My mouth worked fruitlessly, and he gave me a sickly smile and tried to wag his tail.
“The FUCK, DOG! The actual FUCK!”
Ahead of me I saw a man wave at the jogger. “Are you okay? It looked like he got ya!”
“No–he was close but I’m fine.” And then she kept going.
We resumed our walk, but every so often I’d growl. “You bad dog…”
He got into the car and I said it again. “You bad dog…”
He spent the rest of the day looking extremely apologetic.
I’ve kept a tight hold on them for the last couple of days, but I’m so disappointed. We’d worked on this. We had! We had a rhythm! We had a way to deal nicely with other people in the park! One wrong move–one wrong moment of inattention–and this dog might have hurt somebody, and all of the bad things that might have come from that. (Besides HURTING somebody–oh my God.)
So I don’t have a life lesson from this yet. But I do have to tell you that the fucking dog hasn’t forgotten that yank through the air, and the absolute knowledge that he most assuredly fahked up.
God, I hope that asshole learns.
Geoffie, by the way?
Was just as surprised as I was.
I know she doesn’t look like much, but she’s obviously the brains of this outfit.
