Comment to 'I Remember When...'
  • Gary,
    I don't have a link to this as it happened on my street. I was out walking my dogs one morning & a ding bat in a truck came speeding by. I saw her looking at the dogs but didn't think much of it. People usually look at my dogs. But this lady whips the truck over & jumps out. She had a night stick in her hand & she was yelling at me at a volume & speed that I couldn't  understand what she was angry about or why she was coming at us. The dogs moved into position, one on either side of me. To be honest my first thought was this is a mentally ill person. Who does this sort of thing? I live in an open carry state plus there are concealed carry permits. I was carrying my pistol in open carry fashion in hopes that if some moron decided to come after me he'd see the dogs & the gun & his brain might engage, maybe thing about going to McDonalds & leaving me alone. But not this lady. She was just railing at me. At one point she kept advancing & as she was threatening me with the nightstick, I very nearly drew on her. One of the neighbors was on the porch & his wife brought him the rifle while she was calling 911. It was quite a show to happen before the sun has risen. I pointed out that my dog could make it to her before she could make it to her truck so she needed to back off. Police arrived. I have to say, I love our police officers out here. So far (knock on wood) I haven't met one who was a jerk, they've all been very nice & kind to me & my dogs. We were surrounded & the police took over & I have never been so glad to see those cars & uniforms in my life! The dogs lay down at my feet & we had to tell our perspective of what happened.
    The thing the woman went batty over was the fact that my youngest, a large powerful Giant Schnauzer, was wearing a prong collar. I would have laughed except I wanted to kick this woman in the butt so very badly. I was accused of abusing my dogs, accused of being a dog fighter, she swore she saw me jerk my dogs around & kept telling the officers they needed to check my dogs for signs of such brutality. I invited the officers to please bring a flashlight & let's look at my 'abused' dogs. They did. My Giant Schnauzer is coal black & if she had a scar on her it would stand out like a flashing neon sign. I showed the officers how to test the flesh on a dog's neck for abusive type corrections, to feel for the heat in the tissue & explained what they would see if this was an abuse case. My Collie was a brassy sable & white (lots of white) if you abused her or made her bleed it would stand out red/pink on that big white collar & white legs. The officers asked me enough questions that they even joked later they should be paying for the information. So the officers deferred back to the ding-bat inquiring what exactly did she find abusive.
    Again she referred to the collars. I explained to the officers that my young Giant, despite her size, was still quite mentally a puppy. She makes mistakes, gets over zealous & can be a bit much. All my working dogs wear a wide leather collar then they wear their training collar, which is usually a prong. The different with the Giant is she also had a 3rd collar, her choker chain. For the majority of her life, the chain collar is all that's needed as far as a 'correction' collar but the prong was there as a safety precaution in the event she were to elevate beyond acceptable levels of goofiness. A couple of the officers took me aside & asked if I had changed the leash around that morning. I said that I hadn't, it's what made this whole thing really stupid & yet... really funny. You see, the prong collar was on the dog but the leash was never attached to it... it wasn't needed. She was behaving very well & there was no need for anything more than her chain. The big leather collar was to give me a hand-hold in the event that some maniac attacked us so that it didn't hurt her throat or correct her as she worked. It was at this point that the nasty woman started cussing at me & even spit at me.

    The sad thing is, Gary, this has happened to me multiple times since living out west. I know the prong collar looks horrible but the truth is it can be much kinder than a choker.
    just this past weekend I spoke with a woman whose dogs are a mess. I mean a MESS. No training at all, they don't know their name or come when called. When I offered to help the woman if nothing else just while we got through the vaccination clinic, the woman told me, "Oh no. They were shelter dogs. They've been through enough. I wouldn't dream of training them." As if the life they have no as out of control beasties is somehow kinder?