I love dogs. I really

March 13, 2002

I love dogs. I really love dogs. When I was a kid I subscribed to dog magazines and memorized all the breeds. I still take pride in being able to look at someone’s mutt (my favourite type) and figure out what breeds combined to give their dog life. I don’t have a dog because its too hard to leave home and turn my mate into a single mom with one more thing to take care of. I yearn for a doggy.
Its the dog owners I just can’t understand sometimes. If you reference my journal entry from last week you’ll witness one example of my frustration. As a runner my frustration with dog owners is compounded. No matter how hard a dog is trained away from its natural instincts to bring down a deer there is a good chance that he/she will revert to natural tendencies once in awhile. I am aware of this as I run down the local trails that frequented by dog owners and their freely roaming charges. The dog owner has ultimate confidence that “Fang” the Pit Bull is the friendliest creature ever born and would never ever lock its powerful jaws around anybody’s genitals. When you running towards “Fang” and he growls and runs at you your confidence wanes just a little. You can either slow to a calm walk and pretend you’re not scared or you can jump five feet to the left and scream “CALM DOWN BOY!!” at the top of your lungs while pointing at the charging dog...as if to intimidate it. At this point the owners, without exception, either: a) throw their heads back and laugh saying, “oh she’s a total mush ball she won’t touch you.” b) Do nothing, say nothing, keep a blank look on their faces and continue to walk past you c) gently whistle for the dog to come back... to no effect.
I’ve been running for years now and I’ve NEVER once had an owner apologize for their dog scaring the living shit out of me. I calmly ask them to put their dog on a leash if its going to perform simulated attacks on runners. They ALWAYS: a) claim its never happened before b) smile and say nothing c) scowl and intimate that I am over reacting. My solution is to run at the owner as fast as I can (hopefully the dog won’t protect them) holding the rubber knife (a real one could get me in trouble) I have brought for just such an occasion. Inches before I make physical contact I will stop dead in my tracks, sniff their crotch while holding the knife close to their privates, look at them blankly and walk away. If they react to my little game I will throw back my head and laugh and say, “I don’t know what came over me... I don’t usually do things like this”. The other option is to smile serenely at the dog after it has settled down and walk calmly over to the owner and spray mace in their face. Its not the dog’s fault after all.
Can you tell I went running today?