Dogs

I never used to be a big animal person. I still dont really think of myself as and "animal person" even though I have a dog now. I think it's because of some things that happened to me when I was young.

I remember (or seem to remember... it's tough to know how accurate my memories are when they go back to such a young age... but this is how I think the following event occurred) when I was probably somewhere in between 3 and 6, my family was living in Texas at the time. In our neighborhood there was another family that had a pit bull as their pet. I seem to remember that they would leave him chained outside in their backyard a lot. Well one day, another young girl in the neighborhood somehow was attacked by the dog. I'm not sure if she walked through the pit bull's yard, or if the dog somehow got away. But I have a pretty vivid picture of what she looked like afterwards, and lets just say, there was a lot of blood. (At least that's how I remember it).

Ever since then I've been pretty cautious around dogs. Even when I go to friend's houses and they have a dog, I dont really pet it or play with it much. I'm just always thinking in the back of my mind "what if this dog snaps for no reason... it could happen."

But now I have a dog. My husband always wanted a huskie, and he finally talked me into getting one (I had several conditions before I agreed). And the first couple weeks were pretty rough on me. Whenever I was alone with my dog I would try my hardest to keep a safe distance away. And I'd constantly be thinking things like "what am I going to do if she attacks me, I need to develop a plan of action so that if it happens, I'm ready." So I'd think of things like: I'd try to out run her to the nearest bedroom or bathroom so I could shut the door which would keep us separate, or what I would need to do in order to defend myself against her. And she never made any kind of indication that she would ever hurt anything, but I still preferred being prepared in case the situation ever arose.

Well fortunately enough, the situation never did come around. I'm actually convinced that my dog wouldnt attack me even if I were attacking her. I've seen kids come up and poke her, kick her (which did not make me happy), and run around with her, and she's totally fine with it. I dont even think she notices. So I'm no longer planning my defense tactics every second of the day, which makes me feel better. But I still dont care for other dogs, you just never know.

Comments

Anonymous said…
A person wouldn't last 5 minutes inside that head of yours.
Jess said…
what's that supposed to mean? :)