I was on a run yesterday, and in front of me I saw a man walking a dog. The dog was pretty far ahead of the man, and I thought to myself, That’s a long leash.
I considered turning and taking a different route. It wasn’t clear that the man could rein in his dog in time, if I passed by. I’m no longer afraid of dogs (though I was in my younger years), but I’ve had enough incidents with dogs while running to know that, at the least, they can force one to stop running and walk for a bit.
But the dog looked friendly—it was a cute little beagle—so I blithely ran ahead.
I passed the man. When I was even with the dog, on the opposite side of the street, the dog saw me and starting running toward me.
That was when I realized the dog was off leash. Duh. That’s why the dog was so far ahead of the man.
I stopped running, even though the dog was clearly friendly. I didn’t want the dog to get underfoot and trip over it, or frighten it into biting me by continuing to run.
Before I had a chance to react further, the man starts yelling at the dog, and the dog runs to the man. Then the man starts hitting the dog with his umbrella.
“Don’t hit the dog!” I said.
The man kept hitting and scolding the dog.
“The dog doesn’t know any better!” I said.
“Oh, she knows better!” said the man.
“Don’t hit the dog!”
The man stopped hitting the dog. The dog ran far up ahead of us. The man walked to where I was. He had this goofy smile on his face, like he was amused by me.
“Don’t hit the dog, okay?”
“Okay,” he agreed, and walked ahead toward his dog.
I turned around and ran the other way, taking a different route home.
That’s when I remembered, I don’t have the ability to talk!
I panicked for few seconds, but then assessed my brain and realized I was okay.
(Note: I can talk for a limited amount of time each day. I had already talked for my allotted quota of time at that point. But I also know that I’m being conservative in my recovery plan, just to be safe, so it’s not surprising that I could do more than planned. There’s other stuff I could explain here—it’s complicated—but this will suffice as a brief explanation.)
So anyway, I realized my brain was okay.
And then I thought, Don’t hit the dog!!
(Note: I feel bad about being a subpar dog owner when I was younger. I knew nothing about how to care for a dog, and I think I could have done better. I didn’t hit my dog. But I feel that I’m low on dog karma. So I hope I can help dogs in the future—for example, by advising random pedestrians not to hit their dog?)
In conclusion, the wisdom of today’s blog post is . . . DON’T HIT THE DOG!!!!
P.S. It’s April Fools’ Day, but this story is not a joke. It really happened to me yesterday. Have any unusual events happened to you lately?
That guy needs to go to prison. You do not strike any animal unless you’re planning to cook and eat it. -Rick
I wonder whether my words had an effect on him.