Maybe it’s dog owners I dislike, rather than dogs themselves. The undisciplined ones. The ones who laugh when Pokey (the size of a horse) sticks his nose in your crotch or leaps up and leaves claw marks on your chest.
Childhood trauma haunts me. There were no leash laws in my home town – dogs roamed in packs, hunting terrified kids to pull from bicycles. I always rode a mile out of my way to get to my best friend’s house unmolested. There were streets you just didn’t walk down on the way to school.
And then I was attacked. Granted, it was my own fault (see Blame the Victim). We were hosting a haunted house in a neighborhood barn. I was responsible for the bowl of brains, into which timid hands would be thrust. I scrambled those brains with spaghetti and Jello; they were a thing of terror and beauty.
The neighbor’s foul-mouthed flea-bitten dog lunged for them. I hoisted that bowl over my head, damned if he was going to win. He sank his teeth into my arm.
He won.
To this day, the wasted brains bother me more than the scar.
We need your help identifying another waste of brains, a Colorado woman in an SUV who left a 92-year-old friend of mine lying in a pool of blood in a parking lot. Her untended dogs lunged through windows she’d left open, barking and snarling. My friend, startled, lost her footing on the ice and fell backward, striking her head.
The driver returned and saw her dogs straining to get out. She saw my friend flattened and bleeding on the ground. She jumped in her vehicle, backed out beside the body, and sped away, the dogs still braying and leaping.
My friend’s friends, as shaken as she, did not get a good look at the SUV or the bitch behind the wheel. They’d recognize the other dogs, though – a German Shepherd and two Bernese Mountain Dogs. It happened outside Panera last Saturday afternoon, 1/20/18, on College Avenue in Fort Collins.
Were you there? Might you know who owns those dogs? While God claims vengeance as His, we’d love to see some here and now.
Revenge is a dish best eaten cold – like spaghetti and Jello.
My friend is feisty, and lucky — she’s bruised but not beaten. I hope to have half her spunk, at 92.
You should share this essay on FB…..I’ll bet someone knows someone who knows someone…..
Glad your friend is ok🙂
Already done! Who knows? Those six degrees of separation may come through. Fort Collins isn’t a small town, but in many ways it can be. Do you remember the name of the rotten beady-eyed dog next door who bit me? I haven’t gone to a haunted house since. I already know the brains trick, and you never know what teeth might really tear.
How about a “Thumbs Down” in the “Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down” column in the local paper? I might even suggest using the comment about the female dog behind the wheel.
I hope this person is found and severely punished.
Unbelievable. Get well wishes to your sweet lil friend, dog gone it! (Also glad to know I’m
not the only one in FtC who isn’t dog-crazy.)
Yes, it’s always risky to admit that here. I figured I’d lose half my readership :-) But I do have a bicycle! And I do like micro-brews! So I can stay, can’t I??