For the last few of months, Jorah and I have been walking the neighborhood a couple of times a week. A few houses down one of the resident dogs has always been loud and barky when he happened to be in the yard. That isn’t particularly unusual. Every other house we walk past usually has a barking dog. I didn’t do much more than note it until yesterday, when this particular dog managed to squeeze his oversized melon through their fence and charge us.
I managed to get Jorah mostly behind me before he crossed the open ground on a collision course towards us on the sidewalk. He got in one good lunge before I managed to plant a respectable kick to the stomach. He lunged twice more and I kicked him squarely in the head the third time he got in range. That rattled him enough to let me open some distance. By that point – maybe 90 seconds total – the dog’s owners were racing out their front door and starting to wrangle their beast back towards the house.
A large man standing on the sidewalk in front of your home in a quiet neighborhood screaming every curse word he’s ever heard and then inventing some new ones on the spot after he quickly exhausted those while simultaneously trying to punt your dog into the next county will apparently get your attention.
Annoyingly, the other dog’s owner admitted that they knew he was able to squeeze through their fence posts, but they hadn’t figured out how to prevent it. I gave Jorah a once over on the spot and found no obvious signs of damage. I thought perhaps we’d reacted fast enough and was willing to let it go as a close-run thing.
It wasn’t until we got home that I found the small puncture wound midway down his thigh – a clear indication to me that my sweet, shy boy was clearly trying to get away from his attacker. It’s a minor wound considering how much damage a dog bite can do. I’ve got it cleaned and treated as best I can, so I’ll be over here hoping it doesn’t go infected.
Jorah doesn’t seem to be in any pain or to be overly bothered by the wound for the time being. He’s always been timid of other dogs. I expect after this, I we’ll have lost whatever progress we’ve made. As for our walks, those are suspended indefinitely – at least until I see some evidence that the neighbors in question have decided to take some personal responsibility for containing their dog. I’m not holding my breath.