Here is a story for you.
June 30, 2008We begin with Alice, walking her dog, listening to her iPod. Not bothering anyone. Turning the corner, she sees a small, furry blur rushing toward them. A dog, a comically tiny dog, is running out of a backyard, and headed right for Charlie. It's trailing a leash, so she figures the owner must be somewhere behind it.
Charlie, who is not a lover of other dogs, promptly freaks, attempting to get as far away from the other dog as his leash will allow. Alice tries to continue on, but the dog follows. Where is the owner? No one is showing up to explain why this puffball of a dog is free to accost the general public. The dog, whom Alice has named Teeny, appears to want to play, but the playing is taking the form of nippy neck-lunges. Charlie assumes that the dog wants to tear open his carotid. Unable to make a run for it, he finds himself running in frantic circles around Alice. Teeny follows. Yay! Fun times! thinks Teeny. (Actually, Teeny is probably thinking "tththththththththththththth" because Teeny has a brain no bigger than a nail clipping.) Having grabbed Teeny's leash, Alice is now thoroughly tangled. Her earphone cord somehow gets involved with the leashes. It's chaos. "Hello?" Alice calls out to the empty street. "Whose, uh, dog is this?"
Charlie backs away and slips out of his collar, freeing himself, and darts into the street. Teeny tries to follow. Alice screams for him to return, but he's no fool. And go back to that tiny scrabbly thing who wants at his precious neck parts? No thank you. He can still be seen at the far end of the block, peeing on a bush, eyeing that hateful tiny thing. Alice lets go of Teeny's leash and runs toward Charlie, but of course Teeny gets there first, causing Charlie to run farther away and cower behind a tree. Before both dogs run to the next town, Alice grabs Teeny's leash. She attempts to get Charlie to return to her using her most forceful tone of voice, and somehow he falls for it. Now she's managed to slip his collar back on him! Bet you didn't think that was going to happen! Meanwhile Teeny lunges and yaps and Charlie shrieks in horror. Someone's growling. Her? The dogs? Hard to say. She holds both dogs as far away as possible from each other. Now what?
There are at least two more minutes of Teeny lunging for Charlie and Charlie running in circles and Alice getting caught up in both leashes. There must be a smart way to solve this problem , Alice keeps thinking, I should be able to triumph over a dog who is the size of my fist. Is there anywhere to tie up Charlie for the time being? There is not. So she gets both dogs onto the porch of the house from where Teeny may or may not have come, and rings the doorbell. A larger dog barks and scrabbles at the front door. Charlie looks at Alice, as if to say, Are you inviting that dog out, too, because if you are I don't think I can live much longer.
She rings the doorbell. And rings again. Teeny tries to go for Charlie's neck one more time, and he lets out this mournful howl, as if he's calling out I AM TOO OLD FOR THIS SHIT. So Alice ties Teeny to a bench on the front porch of the house, and Alice and Charlie make their way back home. And either the owner of that house will arrive home and think, excellent, I see my evil tiny dog got out to wreak havoc yet again, or else, who left that curiously noisy koosh ball tied to my porch?
Reader Comments (66)
Dogs are crazy! Smart doesn't always beat crazy, so glad to hear that the power of the human mind prevailed.
As someone who has a dog that has occasionally been known to go for walks by herself around the neighborhood (usually when her mom forgets to close the back door, umm... oops?), I appreciate when people bring her home. I'm sure Teeny's owner will feel the same way. If they are Teeny's owner.
Sounds like Teeny is not the kind of dog you will be thinking about years later, like 'whatever happened to that Teeny?' But I still think about this dog.
Stupid lame-ass koosh-ball!
I didn't know Charlie was scared of dogs. Maybe that why he and Pinto get along so well as Pinto is equally scared as well - perhaps their fears cancel each others out.
You were much nicer to 'teeny' than I would have been!