Well, I’m not really going to shoot any dogs -- not today anyway, but can you blame me for considering it?

    An hour before this picture was taken, I was riding along, Low Bridge Road, a very nice country road.  It was flat, maybe a little downhill, and I saw a mule in the side yard of a house up ahead.  The mule looked at me and I wondered, as I sometimes do when I see farm animals, if there was a thought in its head.  Next, I saw the front porch of the house and there was some junk on it.  Then I noted that there was no truck in the front yard; nobody was home.  There was something of fence in front of the house, but it wasn’t complete, and it didn’t go anywhere near the driveway.  It was just enough fence that a dog would know for sure that this land was possessed.  Possessed by his master and that it was probably his responsibility to see that no one comes near it.  I was pretty sure that dog would be bored -- what with no one at home -- and if he wasn’t asleep, he’d be watching the road at the end of the driveway.  

    Since I was moving along at a pretty good clip, I thought there was a good chance I would be past the house before the dog, I’d assumed into existence, even knew I was on his road, but what I didn’t get was that there was another house across the road that I couldn’t see because of some trees, and there was a dog in that yard too; a dog that was just then seeing me.  When he started toward the road with his barker going full volume the mule house dog responded to the alarm and he started for me too.  They were country smart dogs, smarter than the mule I would bet, and I’m pretty sure they had well formulated thoughts in their heads because they didn’t come straight for me, they angled down toward the road hoping that we would all meet at a three axis apex.

    I kicked up my cadence and the dogs almost collided with each other somewhere behind me, but I didn’t feel like I’d won a victory.  I felt like I was being cheated out enjoying a very nice road.  Later in the ride, instead of turning on Mamie May Road, I kept on Bull Run Creek Road until I reached Bethany Church Road because there are three dogs at one house on Mamie May that live close enough to the turn that, if they spot you, they will meet you in the road.  One of them, a young male, is very aggressive.  They’ve held me up twice, once when I was with Nina.  Last week, the young male was trying to muster the courage to bite me when his master came out onto the porch.  

    “They won’t bite,” he assured me.

    What’s the matter with people?  That dog is going to bite someone, that’s for sure.  He’s young, he’s aggressive, he’s just trying to muster the courage to bite.  

    One day, two dogs were hassling Nina and me while we were on a walk.  They were young and aggressive, too; and they just barely lacked the courage to bite.  Then one, the bigger one, saw that the other dog had my attention.  He snuck up behind me and bit.  They’ll bite.  That dog may not bite the old man on the porch, but he’ll bite someone else.  It’s a sure bet.

    It’s not the dogs fault that they act like that.  They’re dogs, after all.  There’s no right or wrong with dogs.   There’s just action and the bored time spent waiting for action.  It’s the fault of the people who own them.  

    A long time ago, early seventies, one of my brothers, Doug, and Randy Ginn, and I were on a bicycle trip in eastern Ohio.  Randy and I were a little ahead of Doug when we saw a dog coming across a farmhouse yard; a big dog; a real big dog.  I yelled for Doug to pedal as hard as he could.  He is my brother, I love him, my dad taught us always to stick up for each other, I wanted to go back and help him.  I would have if it had been terrorists after him, but what to do about a dog?  I pedaled as fast as I could and yelled even louder.  Randy did the same, but it was a sure thing: That dog would get Doug.  

    With all the yelling and looking from the dog to Doug and from Doug to the dog and the dog zeroed in on Doug, none of us noticed that an eighteen wheeler was coming down the road toward us in the other lane.  The truck passed Randy and me with a whoosh and the tiniest fraction of second later, it turned the dog into red mist.  In a moment, the truck was gone, Doug was all by himself on the road behind us, and that red mist hung in the air over the road like a swarm of gnats in evening sunlight.

    That’s what happens to a lot of bike chasing dogs.  It’s a sad end for them, but I have to admit that as much as I like dogs, when I see one lying dead in the ditch -- I saw two like that last week on one ride -- I feel bad for them, but I think that at least that one won’t get me.  Then I get mad at their owners and I feel bad for the kids that probably loved the dog.

 

Heard on NPR: A dog walks into a bar, hops up on a barstool, and says to the bartender, “I’m a talking dog.  What do you think of that?”

    The bartender says, “I’m impressed.”

    The dog says, “How about a free drink for the talking dog?”

    Bartender says, “Sure thing, Buddy, the toilet’s down the hall.”

    The dog has a drink, fills his water bottle, and rides off on his Coho.  (NPR missed the last part.)