February 16, 2003

2 stories about dogs

1
Driving down the highway in the rain at night I am at the front of a dense pack of cars. We are in a construction zone and I am looking at a sign off to the side of the road. My eye catches the sight of a dog running across the highway.

He is across the road before I can even step on the brakes.

He gets halfway across our lane and then stops.

We hit him, killing him instantly and sending our car off into the median.

We swerve to miss him and hit a truck to the right of us, sending him spinning and us off to the ramp on the right.

We don't hit the brakes and slam into the dog at full speed. The noise is horrible and we drag his body for about a hundred yards before the main piece falls off the front of the car. I spend nearly three hours getting all the hair out of the grill and our insurance goes up slightly after paying for new headlights on the right side.

Right before we hit him he reels back a little, just enough to change the angle of impact so that he comes over the hood and through the windshield at us.

2
Our neighbor is a police officer with a K-9 partner. He keeps the dog at home and it is very friendly with us; a large purebred German Shepherd that knows very little about sheep. He is a sweet dog and spends most of his off-duty time doing normal dog things such as sitting on the porch overlooking the parking lot while chewing on a plastic toy or playing with their other dog, a civilian black lab.

We told our neighbor that we were suprised at how normal the dog acts given that it is trained to bring down and nearly kill very strong, desperate people. He said that the dog is trained to act differently when wearing his police collar.

One day when bringing in some groceries the dog made a slight noise and I looked up to find him looking down at me, the chew toy discarded from his mouth. Something I said or did, or the way I was holding whatever it was that I was holding, had triggered something in him and he stared down at me for a moment in complete silence, its hair slightly up, its ears a little more at attention than normal, it eyes and breathing calm and patient. After a few seconds it made up its mind lacking further information and moved back to its little blanket and grabbed the toy in its mouth.

I wonder if I will ever have to put my collar on to deal with you, and if I do, if I can ever really take it off.

February 16, 2003 05:56 PM