The crazy lady down the street...

I’m such a slacker this week. I know this. I really do. I just feel so – I don’t know – off? Is that the word I’m looking for?

I think some of this is that I’m just so completely exhausted after the Thanksgiving weekend. While the rest of you were out spending time with family I chose to stay home. Don had to work so we couldn’t plan a trip. Because of that I laid out this big plan to get my house back in order. I washed, dried, folded and put away every piece of laundry in the house. I cleaned every room and cleaned out a couple of closets while I was at it. I asked the crazy lady down the street if she’d taken her meds. I completely emptied and re-organized J’s dresser drawers. The list goes on but, since it’s not very exciting stuff, I’ll spare you.

Well, wait a minute…the crazy lady is interesting…

There’s a lady and her pre-teen son (will be referred to as crazy lady and boy throughout) who live a few houses down the street. Boy rides his four-wheeler back in forth in front of my house and their dogs chase him. Boy often stops in front of our house, and does doughnuts on his four-wheeler, while his dogs come into our yard and antagonize our dogs. I have repeatedly run off one of his dogs (a lab)for getting into my trash.

Any who…the other day I’m cleaning my little heart out and J comes and tells me “that boy with the four- wheeler wants to talk to my mom or dad”. So, here I am in yoga pants and a t-shirt with no bra. To avoid traumatizing Boy I grab a hoodie to hide the fact that I’m flying free. It’s the polite thing to do, you know. 

Boy proceeds to tell me a story I can’t make much sense out of. Something about Sky (our boxer/husky mix who is frequently mislabeled as a pit-bull) was attacking another dog because the other dog snapped at Sky for getting too close to other dog’s pup. At least that’s what I was able to get out of it.

So, I grab the leash and my house shoes so I can go get Sky.

Let me interject here that I had not “allowed” the dogs to wander. J didn’t shut the door all the way and the wind blew it open. I was in the back of the house and didn’t know the dogs had gone out.

When I arrive crazy lady begins to approach and I immediately say, “I heard there was a problem and came to see what happened and get the dog”. Crazy lady immediately begins to scream at me and for once I was completely speechless. I am never speechless and this only increases my anxiety and confusion.

I just stood there and looked at her.

I let her rant. I couldn’t even gather from her which dog my dog supposedly attacked. She was cleaning a small scratch on the leg of this mangled looking dog in the yard that she claimed was a stray. The mangled looking dog that obviously had given birth to puppies recently.

I gathered at this point that she was clearly looking for a confrontation and I declined to give it to her. Not to mention the fact that she couldn’t even settle on which dog the confrontation was with. First, it was the stray. Then it was a little dog who she said had no injuries but was nowhere in sight. Then it was the stray again.

 I gave up and turned to go.

Then, she did it. She pushed my button. She said she was going to kill Sky.

I still don’t know why but I began to chuckle. She screamed, “I mean it”. I chuckled some more.

I’m thinking to myself…first you say she attacked your dog that’d had puppies but then you say the dog that had clearly had puppies is a stray. Then, you tell me she attacked your small dog when I know for a fact that the only dog you have is a MALE black lab with a red collar…The exact same dog that is always getting in my trash and coming into my yard to antagonize my dogs.

Then I said, “Lady, I understand you’re upset but I came down here in good faith to talk to you and was willing to do the right thing. I can see now that’s a pointless effort. Clearly you’re a few bricks shy of a load and you’ve forgotten to take your meds today. I’ll keep my dogs out of your yard so you don’t shoot them and because it’s the right thing to do.  But, you keep your dogs out of mine so you don’t have to pick them up from a dog pound 3 states away.”

Then I turned my back on her and walked away.

When I got back to my house Sky was lying at the end of the driveway and bleeding from a wound on her face.

Now, how much do you know about dogs? Think about it. My dog is bleeding from the face and hers has a small scratch on her leg. When a dog is angry and attacks what part of the body do they go for?

I’ll give you a clue. It’s not the legs. Bites on the legs are usually a defensive bite because it’s all the dog being bitten on the face and neck can reach.

Sky has a big gash on her face. Here’s a picture from after it was cleaned up. (sorry, it's a mobile phone pic) Now which dog do you think attacked?

 And, for the record, Boy was riding his four-wheeler again last night while the male lab and the "stray" were running up into my yard bothering my dogs (who were tethered on dog runs). If I thought it would do any good I'd pay crazy lady another visit.