I’m feeling a bit traumatized by something that happened today to me and Scoops. We were jogging down the Fifth Street Corridor bike trail, headed east and about to cross Willis Avenue, when two big Boxer-type dogs came out of nowhere and started circling Scoops. They began to chase him in a circle around me, and poor Scoops was petrified and trying to outrun them. I started screaming at them to go away, and leave us alone, but it didn’t work. It was like they saw Scoops as a rabbit-like creature, and they were instinctively focused on chasing him down to kill him.
I finally reached down to pick up Scoops but the Boxers lunged and Scoops got loose from his collar. One of the boxers hovered over him and started to attack. At this point, I got down on the ground and starting hitting the Boxer and trying to pry it off of Scoops; I was screaming for help. I thought my little Scoops’ guts were going to be splayed open and I was terrified of seeing my best friend die.
Finally a man came running up and helped me pry the dog off Scoops, who was left physically unscathed by the incident. I asked him if the dogs were his, and when he responded in the affirmative I promptly began hurtling a slew of expletives his direction. He muttered something about his not realizing the dogs had gotten out, but by this point, I was crying and a total mess, and I carried Scoops away from the scene.
The man went off to wherever he resides, and someone who lives in the neighborhood approached me to ask if we were OK. She said she had seen the incident, and that one of those same dogs had recently cornered her child on their porch.
After hearing this, and once I regained my composure, I called the Ashland County Sheriff’s Department to file a report. An officer met me at the scene.
The afternoon’s sole moment of levity came when the officer — a very nice man by the name of Gene Brinker — hopped out of his squad car and asked, “Well, what’s the scoop?”
He chuckled when I told him that was my little dog’s name.
After I went on to tell Officer Brinker what had happened, he said he would to try to find the man. He asked me if I wanted the guy to get a citation, and I responded in the absolute affirmative.
I am very lucky that the incident ended how it did and that Scoops wasn’t hurt. But yet I am still feeling a bit perplexed, scared and sad about it. I have only seen a dog act like that toward Scoops once before, and that was when he met some sort-of feral sleddogs. I don’t know what it is about Scoops, or about the way in which I handle Scoops, that makes certain larger dogs want to devour him.
The officer did give me one useful bit of advice: He recommended I purchase some pepper spray to take on our walks, so I can spray the hell out of those bastard Boxers if they ever come near us again.
