If I didn’t have enough reasons to hate those hideous circulars that companies randomly drop on your doorstep, I got a big one today.
While trying to comfort a slightly fussy baby, I suddenly heard Arrow freaking out – yelping loudly at the front door. When I got there, I found that a man with a bag full of circulars was holding the front storm door tightly closed on the dog’s foot. Arrow was literally writhing in pain, yelping helplessly. Like an idiot, I tried to grab his collar with the baby in my left arm so the man would let the door go, and he bit my right arm, as a suffering dog will. I ran and put Declan in the pack n’ play and ran back to the door where I yelled at the man to let go and he finally did. Arrow had already peed, pooped and vomited from the fear and the pain.
I was so angry and shaken I ran outside and screamed after him (all he had to worry about from the dog was barking, I was ready to bite him myself), but he had already run off. The dog was limping, the baby was crying and my arm was throbbing. I fetched “The Bag” from the neighbor’s porch to get the number of the company and called to complain. I don’t really remember being that angry. Two people called me back to apologize for the incident, but it didn’t feel like enough.
I’ve been working hard at making sure the dog is trained to be gentle and nonaggressive. He’s definitely been more protective since the baby was born – which mainly makes him bark at male visitors – but he has never hurt anyone, and his biggest threat to the baby has been overloving him. I’m afraid this one man’s stupidity could have just wreaked havoc on my separation-anxiety-ridden puppy.
Copyright Tracy Zollinger Turner, Tinymantras.com, 2009.
