Monday, June 23, 2008

Dog Darts


The bad news is that it has happened to me before. The good news is that it did not happen. I was mentally prepared to deal with an experience last witnessed in 1966. What do you do when the leash clasp opens and the dog darts? In Chicago, perhaps, you pray depending upon the dog.

Our dog is not the most brain rich puppy. She is a small loud mongrel with reckless abandon, whose baby teeth are falling out. She is in her golden year. She barks as if she could attack the largest dog or living thing on earth. If challenged or wants the territory, she may bite. She rarely does so, but I have no doubt what could happen in a pinch. However, she does have her rabies shots even if it wouldn’t look pretty; she is no pitbull.

I don’t want to discuss the chewing issue. Our cat hisses at this cute irresistable ball of curly hair, which licks with reckless abandon at times. This dog is a lick machine and in her drive soothes emotions.

The puppy’s living quarters will not be described in depth. What can be said is that in the two moments that the pooch’s collar has separated from her leash clasp, shrieks of the puppies name have been heard for blocks.

What do you do when what seems like an un-trainable terrier takes off? Think about what was done and don’t do it, again seems appropriate. We have already had an experience with the retractable leash. Before today, I was the last dog walker who watched the leash fail or the dog dart south. Our ‘nine pounder’ took off with the speed of an alien mistakenly freed by the DHS.

D took off with reckless abandon or perhaps to freak out the family with her cunning stupidity. She headed south toward what for us seems like a major traffic artery in Beat 2424. I feared a looney tunes scene setting in only this could be a final episode. I could hear her name being called. I felt mentally ready to hear screeches, screaming and possibly bent metal. Would man’s machines try to compete to simultaneously move and stop in both careless and careful efforts at automobile prowess?

Somewhere, during that period, I had time to put on my shorts, return, and view the nine pound menace in the control of a hopefully more sensitive dog owner. I handed my wife the cheap neon blue canvas/nylon leash with the look of I’ve been there, done that. It was accepted.

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