Doggy Madness

Sophie and her dog checking out the lake

The end of our run!

Today was a beautiful day for a long run. It was a bit overcast and not too hot and not too cold. B.Emmett was a little disappointed when at mile two I did not take him down on the beach like I usually do on our 4-5 mile runs.

Along our route there was a bunch of doggy mayhem that ensued. First we came upon Max. Max is a small scruffy looking dog and he was playing with another small dog that B and I had met yesterday on the beach. We slowed as we approached so as not to scare them. Max's dad picked him up upon seeing an 85 lb doberman approaching (something that frequently happens to the big B). However, as we started to go by B.Emmett decided to take a peek at Max. Although he did not get too close he apparently set off the "don't mess with me button." Max proceeded to growl and then upon not being released from his dad's arms he bit his dad-ouch!

Doggy mayhem number two occurred near Seaside about eight miles into our run. We were cruising along the path when up ahead we saw a family with two small dogs and a man talking on his cell phone carrying coffee walking two medium size mutts. The family crossed the road when they saw the the other dogs coming toward them. All would have been well except one of the little dogs slipped out of his collar and made a beeline for the other two dogs. We stopped about ten feet from the encounter. One of the children ran after the little dog who was socializing politely with the other dogs. Both sets of dogs were fine and when the child reached his dog he grabbed him around the hips and yanked him back. The small dog yelped and the dad came running over and shoved into the other two dogs and started yelling that they were dangerous dogs and that they hurt his dog. The dogs stood politely while both men got into a heated shouting match exchanging words that were pretty colorful. What bothered me was that the dad never realized that it was his child that caused his dog to yelp in pain. He could not see what had happened from his angle and he automatically assumed that the larger dogs hurt his dog. It escalated so fast between the men based on a total misunderstanding. Eventually the two dogs walked over to B.Emmett as the man with the coffee and cell phone walked them towards me. I just said that I was sorry that there was an incident and started running again. I felt the most sorry for his two dogs. They did nothing wrong and got pushed because of a total misperception of reality. People are so quick to jump to conclusions and can be just so mean.

I wonder how often misperceptions like this occur on larger scales and cause things like wars, abuse and other human insanity. Sigh.

The rest of our run was pleasant. B.Emmett was a bit confused because he usually gets picked up by about mile six but today he ran the whole way. That's my baby, that's my dog-love him!