There have been some advantages to living in “downtown” Belmont, New York. There are sidewalks. It has been nice to take Ashby for walks (keeps his nails short) and to be able to break out Quincy’s stroller. We have walked all the sidewalks in town already. We’ve gone to the end of the sidewalks in every direction out of town. I wanted to be able to take a long walk with Quincy and the dog in the mornings – so I did some exploring and I found a dead end road as you head south out of town. Here is a modified map of our hour-long walk:
You’ll notice that our path is in red and there are green dots all along the dead end road. What do they stand for? They represent where we were confronted by other people’s pets the other day.
At our first encounter was a black and white cat. It wasn’t a very smart cat because it kept coming closer and closer to Ashby. Before anything could happen there, I just pulled him away and kept on going.
The next 3 encounters were all Golden Retrievers. I had gone on this walk before with just Quincy several days ago and I knew that there were dogs on this street. We had encounters with these animals before, but their owners were out and nothing happened at all. This time was much different.
The first Golden, I call him the elder statesman Golden because he’s old, saw us from a long ways off. He came hobbling over to us. I parked Quincy and then stepped out in front of the stroller with Ashby by about 5 feet to protect Quincy should things go awry. Both dogs did the requisite sniffing and tail wagging with no growls or egos being bruised. I felt that the encounter went great – he let us pass. I should note since Ashby had been walking for a while already, he wasn’t his usual normal rambunctious self – and that most assuredly helped the situation.
Okay, the two green dots together on the map are two more Goldens that live at the same house. My previous encounter with them didn’t leave me feeling too good. During that encounter, a young girl, was trying to get one of them to back to the house and the dog was growling (at her I think). What is bad is that neither dog wears a collar or anything, so there is nothing to grab. On with the story…
So, I wasn’t really excited about another dog encounter and when I saw them from quite a ways away on the porch of their house, I did an about-face and headed back for safety. Too late. The one young Golden was making a dash for us so I readied for the assault. I parked Quincy facing away from the dog and moved up to intercept. I should point out that I’ve had a lot of animal handling experience working for the vets over the years, and I was ready to use deadly force on this animal should it attack me, Ashby or Quincy. It doesn’t take much to put a choke hold on a dog. Anyways, none of that would be necessary. The dog was very friendly and liked Ashby. The other Golden, a female, came sauntering up and also liked Ashby. Tails were wagging and a good time was had by all. I wondered if they would remember us when we came back down the hill and past their house again. They came to see us again, but it was much briefer this time. During these meetings, I never saw another human being – no owners to be found anywhere. I know this is in the sticks, but I mean, c’mon, your dog could get in a fight or run over or something.
The green dot nearest to the railroad tracks was where we met a nice Sheltie (who wouldn’t listern to her owner call her), but at least there was another person outside!
We ran into the cat again on the way back home and this time it got within about a foot of Ashby. I wouldn’t let them get any closer. You know hard it is to get cat hair out from between Ashby’s molars?
So, needless to say, we had a very eventful walk yesterday morning. We did not walk that way today. I will probably walk it some more since it is very pretty and good exercise. As long as Ashby stays mellow, then I think the other dogs will be just fine. If they get uppity, then I’ll shoot them with my handgun. Okay, so I don’t have a gun, but there’ll be trouble nonetheless!