| Tinkerbell
Born 3/7/98
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Vern Tinkerbell Skippy Koi Peanuts Starbreaker Mittens Tigger Others Carrie's Page |
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Tinker's Tales Why are people afraid of me, Mommy? I was only chasing them 'cause they were running.... The very first outing we ever took our Pretty Princess on, was to the "unofficial" off-leash doggie park in the neighborhood. Tink was 6 months old and we'd had her a whole day. Oh, my, did she ever like the park! She bounced and bounded and sniffed and peed and drooled and watched everything Vern did very closely; she wanted to be just like him! She was pretty good, and recalled OK, so we started to get more and more brave. Now, I should note that when I say "unofficial" I mean just that. Legally, you're supposed to have your dog on leash at this park. However, the animal control officers rarely came there, almost never went in, and if they did, they certainly never deviated into the woods at all. And the cops, well, the cops were glad we were there. See, the park is next door to a High School. The amount of drinking, drugs and crime in that park before the dog walkers came was really out of control. Not just the students, though obviously they were there, too, but actually it was almost worse that there was so much adult crime right next to the school. Dogs, of course, have no shame, and are happy to go right up to anyone doing anything, sniff, wag, and look at them with the "what'cha doin'?" face, waiting for their owners to arrive and drag them off. So the dog-walkers lowered crime and as a result, the authorities kinda turned a blind eye to the off-leash activities. Well, except it's not posted, right? So not everyone knows. We came down the big hill towards the dry river bed, and Tink spotted the little girls. They were running! Yay! Running! Tinkie go running too! Yay! All those little girls saw was about 50 pounds of Rottweiler bearing down on them at an alarming clip; they screamed, startled. But then, they stopped running and so did Tinker, confused. We called her and she ran back, without ever having gotten near those little girls, or touching them. Their father was scared and pissed, and tried to pick a fight with Paul. No kidding -- in his face, shoving, and etc. OK, now right or wrong with the off-leash dogs, let's think about this: You're 5'7" tall, you look like Bill Gates, you're wearing glasses, and you've got a couple 5-7 year old girls in tow. You think a bad person is letting his dangerous voracious dogs chase and eat innocent children. What are you gonna do? Hmmm... Yeah, I think picking a fight with a 6'4" 200 pound long-haired man wearing a black leather coat and walking two rottweilers is a really good choice. Think about it, man -- not even counting what you're teaching your little girls about how to handle conflict, if either the big, hairy owner, or the dogs is vicious, you're dead, and all in front of your children. Then who's going to protect the girls from the dangerous beasties? But, of course, my babies aren't vicious. Vern went with me to greet the girls while Paul tried to convince Geekmeister Scrawny that fighting was dumb. Tink just wandered through it all, watching and curious. She followed us back to the car, while another park regular tried to talk to the Geekmeister, so he would leave Paul alone and let us just separate the two. She never understood why those little girls were afraid of her, or why they didn't want to play.
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