Assaulted again...

Bear's claws healed fast so we didn't take any breaks from walking the next day. And again, on Wednesday, we were back out on a walk. We hadn't gotten much further than 1/4 mile when we were merrily walking down the road. Suddenly, a dog charges down his driveway. The dogs see him as he's coming at them full force and start barking and growling. He comes in for the kill...I guess Bear seems like a good target since he's putting on the best show. He and Bear were fighting it out with Jack trying to help Bear out and Tucker and Jasmine just barking. The owner, a woman, comes running when she hears the commotion. She was screaming at her dog and I was oddly calm...by that I mean I wasn't screaming my head off like a maniac as I had done on Monday. The husband comes running out to see what's going on and yells at the dog and their dog starts running to evade being captured by his owner. I am managing to keep my dogs from catching his as he circles around and around and around us and even keeping them from getting tangled around me as the dance continues. The man looked at me and said "Go and et your dogs out of here." I didn't say anything to him at first. I didn't want a smart remark to come out and make things worse. But I was thinking about how he was just lucky that I was able to hold my dogs back from charging his...after all, they had two people and one dog. I was one person with 4 dogs and mine were, under the circumstances, behaving much better than his. And he expected me to just mosey on by like I hadn't a care in the world. I finally said, "I can't." At long last, I was able to pull the dogs backward while the other dog contiuned his evasive dance around us. We finally made it far enough away from his territory that he let his guard down for a second and was captured. The dog and people quickly went inside and slammed the door shut behind them. Neither of them came back out to see if we were ok or to apologize and that made me even madder. The dogs and I were in someone's yard trying to catch our breath and settle trembling legs. Bear started holding his rear legs funny. I inspected his legs and he had ripped the rear pads up pretty good and reopened his claws. So we had a very short walk and poor Bear was too heavy for me to carry home so he had to walk. I was really mad that the

Look at how tiny his feet actually are under all that fur!

Back at home, I put Neosporin on Bear's feet and covered them up with baby socks (which we keep around for this purpose) so he couldn't lick or gnaw at his pads. With Bear, this is a neccessary thing. When he was a puppy and he was neutered, he got stitches. A couple of days later, I had him out in the yard and he was running around. I heard a yip of pain from him. The next thing I know, he is ripping out his stitches right in front of me and I couldn't get him to stop. But he was healed enough at that point that the vet didn't have to put any new ones in, lucky him.

I went to the pet store and picked up a spray can of citronella. It's in a tube like pepper spray. It sprays up to 10 feet away. So now I am armed and no more dogs had better try anything funny or I will use my new weapon...regardless of whether an owner is around or not.

We took a day off of walking last night to give him an extra day to heal. This morning, his pads were looking really good so we'll try a walk today.