A Dog, A Siren & Memories

After reading Eddie's Dog story, it made me think of my own experiences with dogs over the years.

In my teens, it was very common to be chased by dogs when I running around the suburbs of Brisbane. No council by-laws making dog owners more responsible back then. I had many such altercations like Eddie and used very similar tactics. I found you couldn't turn your back to them and you just had to act and appear meaner than they did.

But my favourite dog story, is from the early 80s when I was living in Tarragindi in Brisbane. To go from a run from home, I had to go along my street and at one end there was dog that had much pleasure in terrorising me. My way around this was to have two stockpiles of rocks. One was just outside my house and the other was 50 metres the other side of the house with the dog. When I went for a run I would pick up a rock in each hand and run up the road. If all was quiet on the dog front,I would deposit the rocks in my other stockpile and continue on with my run. On the way back, I would again pick up two rocks and go past the house and if all was quiet I would put them on the stockpile outside my house.

If all wasn't quiet and a confrontation occurred, I would use all of Eddie's techniques. Stand my ground, stare him down, make a lot of noise and then POW POW I'd unleash my double barrel rock throw. Overtime he started to respect me a bit more and he would sometimes put on a bit of a barking show but never the full on assaults that he used to do. Sad really because I used to enjoy the adrenaline buzz of the contest. (A few years back, I took on a scrub turkey trying to nest in my backyard. We battled for a month until I finally conquered. )

My worst dog story is when I was attacked by two large dogs on The Gap Cycle path in the early 90s. The dogs were on leads and were being walked by their two owners. They heard me coming running up behind them, and one went to the right of the path and the other to the left. That only left me with the option of running along the centre of the path. As I ran between them, both of the dogs leapt at me and attacked my back mostly with their claws. I had about six long scratch marks down each side of my back which were bleeding freely. From that day on, I have been very wary of any dog and I am super cautious when approaching or passing them.

These days the biggest danger I find is people walking their dogs with those long retractable leads. When they let them out too long, the dog can be on one side of the path and the owner the other and it can be a dangerous obstacle in fading light. Rarely are the dogs the problem.