Happy Thanksgiving!

          I will not be submitting a story to "My Life with Dogs" again until the weekend of December 7-9.  I am taking the Thanksgiving holiday off from writing.  With this announcement, I want to take the opportunity to wish all my loyal dog readers a very Happy Thanksgiving.  Until we share again our love of dogs, God bless you all.

Your Friend,
Teresa

  

The Barking Dog

The dog’s presence is known tremendously throughout the world.  There are 400 million dogs.  Can you imagine that?  What if they all started barking at the same time?  That would truly be something out of the science fiction.  It brings about my story this week.

As a child growing up in the country back in the sixties, I have a vivid memory of lots and lots of dogs.  There were dogs and dogs, everywhere!  And everywhere they seemed to be at many of our neighbor’s houses.  It does seem like I am running out of topics when I write a story like this.  But it becomes a memory from childhood.  It was when growing up on a farm; there was that dog.  We never exceeded a limit of more than two or three at one time.  But some neighbors had lots of them.  And what better time to realize it was when we went to visit them.

In visiting that certain neighbor with my Mother, there came the barking dogs.  In fact, several came barking at the same time.  My Mother had to maneuver the car so as not to hit one.  They seemed to be everywhere.  We were not allowed out of the car until the neighbor came to the front door of the house yelling, “They don’t bite!”  It didn’t always stop the barking. When there’s a pack of them, the noise boggles the mind.  We generally did not stay long at the neighbor’s house.

Dogs bark!  It is especially annoying if one barks all night keeping you up.  The owner is apparently immune to the noise.  But just how many have had a sleepless night from a barking dog?  I know I have.  I was so happy when the neighbor next door decided to give her daughter back the dog she gave her.  I guess the daughter felt mom living at home alone needed a companion.  But mom never showed the dog any attention.  It was her pet and required that love.  But apparently she never gave it.  If she had, perhaps there would not have been all that barking.  The dog moved to the other side of town.

I am a dog lover.  But I was still glad to see that dog move.  Once a dog starts barking, there seems to be no stopping it.  A barking dog goes on and on forever….

As I type this piece, my son gets up from his chair and goes to the front door.

“What did you see?”  I asked.

“I didn’t see anything.  I heard dogs barking.”

It never fails.  The dog can be a warning to us all that something is not right outside.  Whether it an intruder, another dog, cat or other animal, he is letting us know.  I think if known, everyone looks.  I guess it can be said, "Sometimes barking is a good thing!"

Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right

It was in the seventies and a new subdivision we had just moved into.  The world seemed like a safe place.  It was not unusual to speak to your neighbor even if the neighbor lived several houses away.  Constantly there was bicycle riding on the street.  There was walking.  You just never figured anything was needed for protection.  But today, in the same subdivision, there is less bicycle riding.  There is less walking.  If walking; the person carries a stick.  I have even seen the carrying of a golf club.  Who or what are we protecting ourselves from?  Even I don’t walk much on the same street.  I contribute mine though to being older and bad knees.

At the end of my street those many years back was an open field where many would go to ride their bicycles, ride motor vehicles, and walk.  We called this area the trails.  It seemed like many neighbors put that area to use.  But as progress came, so did the end of the trails.  The trails became more houses with more people.

It was actually fun to walk back then.  And even I rode a bicycle occasionally with my children.  But in those walks someone always seemed to walk with me.  But not so on this one day as I walked alone.  It was just before me there was a boy on a bicycle.  Before my eyes, I saw something I found hard to comprehend.

It was from a house came running a dog and he/she proceeded to head right for the boy on the bicycle.  The dog took the boy off that bicycle.  The dog began his biting.  I didn’t think twice about my own safety as I headed for the dog and boy.  I managed to get the dog off the boy.  The boy jumped on his bicycle and took off.  I assumed he was heading home.  The dog headed in the other direction.  I assumed he too was heading home.  I stood there amazed at what I had witnessed.  I received no thanks.  I believed the boy to be minding his own business.  But at the same time, I wondered what had provoked the dog?  I would soon learn the answer.  I was not the only eye witness to that incident that day.  But I was the only one who proceeded to stop it.

From a near-by house came a lady yelling at me, “I saw that!  Why didn’t you leave it alone?”

I was surprised by the lady’s reaction to which I replied, “I couldn’t let that dog hurt that boy!”

“That boy deserved it!” she insisted, “On his way to school, he always throws rocks at the dog.  He pokes sticks at him.  He does whatever he can to abuse the animal.”

“No one deserves to be mangled to death by any animal.”  I replied.

I have often thought about that incident over the years.  How long a memory span does a dog have?  Was the dog justified in his action?

Apparently other neighbors felt the same way about the boy deserving it.  I got other opinions later about the incident.  It seemed no one sided with the boy.  He had deserved it.  There were witnesses to the incident.  No one tried stopping it besides me.  As I thought about it, I wondered why no one ever tried stopping the abuse to the dog in the first place.  They had left it up to the dog to get his revenge.  And then when he did, they said the dog was justified.

Two wrongs don't make a right.  It is so wrong to abuse an animal.  It is so wrong to just sit by and watch a dog attack a human.  Again, two wrongs don't make a right.  I can't help but think I made the right call that day.  What would you have done?  Would you have made the same call?