Run 89, 2009 …sigh! Yet another dog attack…will it never end?

Before I start on my rant, Allow me to point out that I’ve just corrected a counting error and this is Run 89 of 2009 (1211 total km this year so far). So I changed my last post title to reflect that.

Anyway, today’s 11 km run was going mighty fine until I yet again was attacked by a stupid owner’s dog. I was just coming out of the wildlife sanctuary when I saw a truck pull up at the end of the trail (still about 4 km from home along country roads). The stupid owner jumped out of his truck and let his two dogs out, one of which immediately attacked me and bit me in the leg, tearing my pants (which now have a 6 inch rip in them) but fortunately not enough to break the skin. It was one of those stupid ugly little poodles owned by an even stupider older male person.

I have been “charged” by dogs countless times and so when I saw that poodle bear down on me barking like crazy I thought it would be just another show of all bark and no bite but this time I was wrong. Startled, I cried out I angrily and said to the owner, “Ouch! Control your frikken dogs, man!” “@*#&$^ *&^^”, I added angrily. (That was not really taking the lord’s name in vain as at that moment I sincerely wanted this person and his dogs to roast in hell for all eternity. It was sort of a prayer, you see). In truth, I don’t really want this to happen, but that’s what knee jerk anger can do. So the guy bows his head, looks away from me, totally ignoring me and the obvious rip in my running pants, and he makes a wide berth around past me and onto the trail. The guy seemed to be very terrified, he was certainly acting like the frightened little twit he was. I had to get out of there immediately because I would have been very tempted to punch his lights out. Rather, I knew I was very angry and that I took the best course of action by leaving as quickly as he did and calming down a bit.

I kept running. I had some really nasty fantasy thoughts of how to deal with aggressive dogs permanently by carrying certain illegal weapons with me. Of course, this is sheer nonsense and I knew it. The problem I had was that I had no plan, except crazy stupid ones which I would never seriously consider using. What was I going to do, tackle the guy? Yell at him some more? Slash his tires? Make his dog apologize? I began carrying pepper spray with me but I’ve never used it, preferring not to use force except as a last resort, which in my case would not happen until a dog draws blood. In this case I had no time to use it, the incident was over before I could even react.

But now I do have a plan. And it is a reasonable one. If this ever happens again, I will have the phone number of the local dog control officer in my cell phone and I will call the officer. I will detain the offending owner as best as I can or follow the stupid bastard home or take photographs of his license plate number and dogs and I will charge him and go to court to make sure he doesn’t get away with it. But my plan involves stopping running until I can get a hold of the local dog control officer who has had many problems in this area in the past.

I’m just fed up with being attacked by dogs on public property. My plan involves no violence and gives total control over to lawful officers of the peace. I think it is a reasonable plan and I hope you all agree that I should have a right to run on or in public properties and public roads without being bitten by dogs or having my clothes torn by their teeth. Yes I felt a lot of anger and was very upset, but by now having a reasonable plan in effect I won’t be caught off guard again, and I can stay reasonably civilized. And oh yes, one last thing: I have actually drawn my pepper spray can many times in the past as soon as I’ve seen a dog bearing down on me but I have never used it because always at the last minute the dog proves it was just a fake charge. Somehow I can tell the dog won’t hurt me. But I am losing patience and if I ever see one of those poodles charge me again, not only will he get sprayed if he gets within three feet of me, but I’m going to make the owner pay for the can. And if I accidentally spray the owner as well, it not my fault. Hmm, I think I’m still angry.