Dog gone it

You know, I try to do my best and keep my dog on a leash or inside my fenced in back yard.  I try to be a responsible pet owner.  It really bothers me that I have to find a route home from my friend Lori's that doesn't have dogs on it.  Well, I should rephrase that.  There are dogs on every block in this town, it seems.  However, there seems to be a high concentration of mean dogs on this one stretch between mine and Lori's house.

Tonight Lori and I walked for an hour and to add a little extra to my walk, I decided to walk home with her and then back to my house (we usually meet and then walk).  When I started to go down one street I remembered that they had big mean dogs but I figured that as long as they were tied up, which they had been in the past, I was okay.  Well, how was I supposed to know that the place right next to that one had two dogs, one of which looked like a nursing mother and the other a fierce, medium sized dog.  The nursing mother came shooting out of the yard towards Ivy and I.  She didn't get real brave until the other dog came out of the yard.  The other one came up behind me while the female was along side of us.  I really think they were going to gang up on Ivy.  The people that lived there were coming out, but not fast enough.  I turned around to the fierce dog and hollered at it to get and kind of stomped at it, then kept Ivy moving on down the block.

Well, a young boy was coming towards us on a bike, I would say he was around 7 or 8 years old, and he saw the mean dogs and he saw Ivy.  He asked me if he could pet my dog.  I said yes, but that we should walk away a little further so that the mean dogs wouldn't get to us.  I didn't want him to ride down that street right then because at this point, one of the owners was beating one of the dogs, in the middle of the street, with a rope.  I just hate that.  I really hate that.  Ivy let him pet her and then he went on his way. 

I really think I'm going to avoid that street from now on.  In some ways, it bothers me to do this, because I think people purposefully have mean dogs so others don't come around, and this seems like I'm letting them win.  However, I will not put myself or my pet in danger just to prove a point.  And even though I'm going to avoid that street, I'm considering carrying pepper spray or a big stick on our walks in the future.  I still haven't forgotten 'Moose'.  That was the Saint Bernard that ran out and attacked Wrigley and Ivy when I was walking the two of them when Ivy was just a pup.  That man had to actually tackle that dog to get him under control.