Ah, Ted’s first Christmas — a time of wonder and discovery. But first, a rant about a neighbor’s dogs.
Our next-door neighbor’s parents, who live just up the street, clued us in about avoiding a certain woman who has “two giant dogs,” because she would keep us talking forever. I never ran into this woman during my morning walk with Ted, so I figured that she must take her dogs out later in the day. JG encountered her during one of his afternoon walks a couple of months ago; one of her dogs got loose and came after Ted, so JG turned on his Stern Teacher Voice and gave her an earful about controlling her dogs. I figured that I wouldn’t need to deal with her after all, so I put it out of my mind.
On Christmas Day, JG and I swapped walk duties so that I could sleep in, so I took Ted out while JG futzed with the turkey in the early evening. On the way back home, I heard the sound of a chain scraping against the concrete sidewalk, and I saw a medium-large, short-haired, brown dog wandering on the other side of the road. When I looked past the dog to the house behind, there was an enormous, black and white, hound-like dog with its paws up on the railing of the front porch. Oh. These were the famous giant dogs. I straightened up into my best calm-assertive posture, and pulled Ted along, ignoring the other dogs. The brown dog noticed us across the way and came running toward us, barking. I scooped up Ted and said loudly, “Get down!” as it jumped up on us. When my attempts to walk home and ignore the dog seemed to incite it to follow me, I crossed the street with every intention to bang on the door and give whoever answered it a piece of my mind about controlling dogs and the responsibility toward the safety of the neighborhood.
Before I reached the house, a short woman* with curly black hair emerged, stammering in broken English that she was sorry. I watched as the brown dog bolted away from the woman and she toddled after it, calling out halfheartedly. When the dog reached the end of the block, the woman turned around and walked back to the house. Still holding Ted, I asked sharply, “Are you going to get your dog?” Yes, she said, that’s my dog. “No. Are you going to get him?” It was hardly a question. She was going to get her son, she said. Irritated at the situation, I stalked off with Ted without another word. I know that it was rude, but there was clearly no reasoning with a woman who had no control over her dogs and didn’t see anything alarming about a fairly large dog roaming around at twilight. Ted and I made it home without further incident, and he didn’t seem affected by the unpleasantness.
I know that I am more sensitive to dogs and dog behavior now that we have Ted, but seriously. It is not okay to have large dogs loose in an area where there are cars and children. Besides the obvious risk to people and potential damage to property, owning a pet without being aware of the animal’s behavior in general is completely irresponsible. If I was still in my state of dog fear, seeing a loose dog when I was by myself would have undone me. Owners just can’t assume that everyone is automatically at ease with their dog and the dog’s behaviors. I would hope that this would be common sense, but one can’t assume that, either.
Aside from a short conflict that was more traumatizing to me than to Ted, our little dog had a very nice first Christmas. He had a whole, luxurious day with both of his people, starting off with the exciting present-opening ritual. We filled up his bone-patterned stocking with a new hoof chew toy and a tennis-ball-bungee apparatus to replace the ones that he’s destroyed, and JG wrapped up a package of treats. We nudged the packages toward Ted, and he investigated them thoroughly before tugging at the ribbon and tearing into them.
JG rewarded his effort with a tasty new treat, which proved to be quite the entertaining plaything. While JG and I finished opening our presents, Ted pounced and prowled around his piece of filet mignon before finally devouring it. It’s the thrill of the hunt, I suppose.
Come and get your (almost) daily dog dose with Rufus, Ben, Gus, and Zapp!
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* January 6, 2008: It has been confirmed that the woman JG encountered and the woman I met are two different people. The former has dogs that are like two grizzly bears, and I passed them today during Ted’s walk. Nevertheless, the rant still holds.
7 comments
Ok Ted = so cute!
And I can’t stand people who don’t control their dogs! Years ago we had these a-holes across the street who let their dogs run wild, and they would attack other dogs! We got like, the councilwoman of our town involved, and newspapers, and finally when the dogs bit a person, they got taken away. The stupid owners, I feel bad for the dogs! They could have been good dogs if only the people cared enough.
Happy Holidays!
It’s just too bad that someone got hurt and then all the blame gets shifted onto the dogs, rather than the owners.
Ted looks so precious opening his presents!
Since I’ve gotten my dogs, I have become extremely sensitive to the way other people control (or don’t) control their dogs. The leash thing bothers me quite a bit. I don’t care how well trained you think you dog is….it really isn’t ok for your dog to be out and about without a leash (and it’s against the law in quite a few places). You might have the best behaved dog in the world, but you will never know what will set a dog’s instincts into motion….and once that happens, your dog isn’t listening to you anymore. It’s that whole, “He was always so gentle before he mauled the neighbor boy.” People trust their dogs way too much. I love my dogs to pieces, but I always remember that they are animals first.
The no-leash thing bothers me a lot, too. There are other neighbors down the street who have multiple dogs and some of them just roam around off leash when they take the others out in the yard. The dogs are very nice, but they’re big and fast, so the whole thing makes me uneasy. One of them almost got hit by a car before my very eyes. You’re so right about not knowing what will set off a dog’s instincts.
Ted is such a good present opener!
I have a real issue with people who don’t control their dogs, too. I hate it when I’m walking Ben and some dog without a leash comes racing up to us. The owners are always all, “Don’t worry, he’s friendly!” But, here’s the thing. Your dog may be friendly, sure; but how do you know that my dog is friendly? You don’t, so just put your damn dog on a leash already.
That’s such a good point about not knowing how your dog will react. I hate it when people reassure me that their jumping, yelping dog is being “friendly,” as if that will automatically allay any fears I may have had. I can understand that intellectually, but having an animal in my face is not cool. If nothing else, isn’t it kind of rude? You’d never make excuses like that with a kid, you know? “Oh, Johnny always slaps and yells at new people. He’s just being friendly.”
I totally agree that people need to keep track of their pets and train them to behave well, or at the very least keep them inside the house or fenced-in yard so that other people do not have to deal with their problematic behavior. I’m glad Ted is such a good dog and those photos are adorable!
Yes, I’m grateful that Ted seems unaffected by some of the more rowdy dogs on our walking route. He’s very sociable, so he just sees other dogs as a new friend, except if they’re barking. Persistent yipping makes him run for the hills — he’s such a chicken.
I love dogs, but I still have a problem with people who let theirs run around out of control. It’s one thing if the dog has been trained enough to follow commands or to stay in a certain area/yard, but for dogs to be running loose, it’s not on.
Thankfully your phobia has settled - though I have to say, that would have had me worried.
Sounds like you had a wonderful Christmas, your Ted is very loved (and spoiled!)
I’m really glad that I can be around dogs now without getting all flustered. Having a smaller, more manageable pet has helped me in that, I think.
You know, our vet could tell from Ted’s behavior that we had no kids or other pets. He said that Ted’s being so calm on the exam table meant that he was getting A LOT of playing time, which is totally true.
Christmas seems to agree with Ted.
I would get annoyed with your neighbor, too. Not only are her dogs dangerous to PEOPLE, but that kind of care is cruel to the dogs, too! Poor doggies.
I know! The big hound dog seemed really docile (or maybe he was just tied up more securely), but the brown one was totally hyper. You could tell that they didn’t get walked enough.
Ted is so cute. I almost want to steal him.
Hands off - get your own!
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