5.Versluys'.us

When spooked, I am not the screaming type. My gut instinct is usually to do a bit of arm-flapping and jumping up and down. If there’s any sound, it’s not so much a holler or shriek as it is an exclamation that comes out strangled and thus intelligible. “Gah!”

After I catch my breath, I generally get mad. Foot stomping mad. And that’s when the verbal assault begins. If I’m scared by a big mean man who knows better than to sneak in the bathroom while I’m taking a shower because I’ve seen Psycho and I know what happens behind opaque shower curtains, he deserves every word. If it’s an unsuspecting kid or animal, I just start talking loudly or laughing hysterically because I know it’s not their fault but I need to make some anger-diffusing noise.

You need to know this because it will give you ammunition for your imagination as I relate the following story.

Nearly 5 years ago, I was hoofing it up to Strawberry Peak (a fire lookout on my parents’ mountain at the end of a steep winding road) on a clear crisp spring morning. I had loud music pouring into both ears from my iPod, and was just getting into the arm-pumping heart-racing groove when I felt something grab the back of my lower leg. To be precise, I felt one set of very sharp teeth sink into my calf.

My spooked response was typical – I whipped around to face a rust colored chow and uttered a strangled “gah!”, shocked (and slightly embarrassed – name that song) that this thing had just attacked me without any provocation or any warning. Then I got verbal.

This time, the assault was directed toward whatever insane homeowner had let a vicious attack dog out of its barbed wire cage. My shrieks of rage were directed at every house within earshot. “Hey! Your dog bit me! HEY!” The dog was clearly a coward, because he took off running.

A woman burst out the front door of a house just yards down the road, hollering for her animal. I yelled, “is that your dog?” She responded immediately, “he didn’t do anything!” Uh, I beg to differ, lady. Talk about denial.

We conducted a brief conversation shouted across the road because I was not willing to go anywhere near that devil dog’s kennel. She was belligerent and insisted her dog would never bite until I lifted my pant leg to show the blood dripping from two neat puncture wounds. I shouted that I’d have her dog taken away, and she turned into a blubbering mess, insisting I couldn’t do that and the dog was all she had. I told her tough luck and she’d better pray I didn’t have to get a rabies shot or I was coming back to her house and sticking a needle of potassium chloride into her dog myself.

I hobbled back home to my mother, this time without any music and on alert for any other stray dogs who might want to finish the job. While my mom was pouring hydrogen peroxide on the bite, I called Eric (we were dating then) and told him I’d nearly died and he should marry me immediately. I also asked if he didn’t mind a scarred bride and broke the news that a thigh-high cocktail dress was out of the question for our wedding. I was condemned to wear a floor-length gown to cover my mangled calf.

I ended up seeing our family doctor, who cleaned the wounds and said he’d report the evil chow to animal control. I’ve never seen the dog since, although I look for him on every walk up to Strawberry Peak and will until the day I die. He might have sired vicious puppies before he was hauled off to “the happy place”.

This morning, I was walking up a different hill in different mountains with different music playing on different earbuds. It was only in the last year that I could walk with both earbuds in – call it PTSD or whatever, the trauma was real.

10 minutes into my walk, I had the feeling I was being watched. Or followed. I heard a jingle down near my calf just behind me. Heart in my throat, I turned around to see this ferocious beast inches from my leg:

“Gah!!!!” I nearly passed out right in the middle of Spruce Road. It took me a second, but I realized the creature was a sweet medium-sized dog named Dixie from down the street, and she was just being friendly. The relief flooding my veins didn’t prevent stage two of my freak out, though. I slipped right into talking loudly and a bit hysterically: “Go home! You shouldn’t be out of your yard!” And then I even feigned nonchalance: “You’re enjoying this beautiful morning too, aren’t you?” The whole while praying my heart will stop racing and that I won’t reflexively kick the dog away from me. It’s not her fault some dogs were born bad.

After a few moments of vain shooing, I saw that Dixie was determined to accompany me up the hill. We ended up traveling to the top of Acorn together, she running after squirrels and I, still gun shy, calling her name periodically to keep her in front of me where I could see her teeth.

We parted at Pheasant on our return route, she to her house and I continuing on my way home. I must confess, it was a bit stressful, but she won me over and I’m glad I didn’t kick her. One set of canine bite marks is enough for anybody.