To carry a stick

When we moved here, I thought it was weird that I would see people walking along the street carrying a stick or bat. Our neighborhood feels pretty safe, as did the neighborhood where my brother lived that I witnessed the same thing. I couldn't understand it until I myself would take my kids on a walk or go running.

It was the dogs. We have a rampant loose dog problem here. I don't mind the little yapper dogs or the puppies so much, although they are annoying and my kids are scared of them, and the dogs can't figure out that if you kick them or spray them with the hose, it isn't playing. It's the big dogs that I have a problem with. When I go running, I nearly always have at least one dog running after me. Finally, today, when a boxer came around the corner after me and stopped in front of me, baring his teeth and growling, I backed across the street and grabbed a stick from the neighboring yard. Fortunately, the dog let me go, but I carried the stick with me for the rest of my run. (I thought boxers were nice dogs; our neighbor in Oklahoma had such a nice one, but I know he spent a lot of time training it. Maybe boxers can be mean if their owners neglect them like most people here seem to do.)

So I finally broke down and joined them, as stupid as I must look. At least it's not as cumbersome as pushing the stroller while running (at least I can just put the stick in the baggage compartment of the stroller). Maybe I'm just a wimp.

So few dog owners take care to train their dogs. The newest dog on the other side of our fence keeps trying to dig his way into our yard. Since the owners won't do anything about it, I gathered a ton of rocks and pushed them under the fence. Since then, their dog hasn't been outside much, so I guess that's one way for them to fix the problem. Now, granted, there are a few dog owners who do train their dogs. Like our new neighbors that bought the foreclosed house -- they have two huge labs that hardly bark and are docile and obedient.

Obviously, I'm a cat person through-and-through.