Nemesis

This happened right after Thanksgiving. My dog Booker is your typical lab. He is intelligent, friendly, happy, and can sleep for hours at my feet until he is jolted into animation by the almost silent sound of a leash being taken down from the shelf by the door. When this happens, it is a struggle to get the leash attached to his collar because he will turn in quick circles, like an otter with a bum leg, until you can catch him and put the leash’s latch onto the collar’s hook. We have a friend, Phillip, who comes to walk him during the week, and when he shows up Booker jumps about six feet in front of the door to get a view of the approaching walker. It is mayhem for a couple of minutes as Phillip bustles Booker out the door, and about an hour later they return with Booker panting hard and plopping his often wet body down on the oriental rug.

Booker has learned tricks—he has really applied himself; he’s worked hard. He has learned to catch a Frisbee at fifty yards on the fly. He gets the paper for us in the morning. Recently I’ve taught him to shake, but it’s more like a gimmee five because he slaps at my hand instead of placing it firmly in my grasp; and often he embellishes this trick by jumping on me and forcing me to admit that brushing a dogs teeth is not an act of over-pampering. He looks at me sometimes with his intelligent eyes and I know he wants to tell me something, something about what happened at the dog park or how many trees he marked that day, so I’ll rub his ears and toss him a piece of pizza crust (he’s good at catching those too) and he’ll eventually lie down at my feet, content, after completing his con.

I spent Thanksgiving day with my family, and ate more than I think I’ve possibly ever eaten in my entire life. It’s hard to admit this gastronomical discrepancy, but for some reason the idea of rewarding myself for hard work that I’d been doing meant piling two helpings of purposely rich and fattening food onto the biggest plate I could find and not giving myself time to even taste it as I scarfed the entire mass down my gullet. After the cramps subsided a bit (they came on about the time I had my first slice of pumpkin cheesecake, although that didn’t stop me from having another) my brother-in-law invited me for a run. I declined, but asked him how far he was going. “Three miles,” he said and then took off. He was back in less than thirty minutes.

All of this has a point. The solitary orgy I partook in on Thanksgiving gave way to a pendulum of guilt and forced me to evaluate my health. Eating conspicuously while my father was at the other end of the table suffering from what was later diagnosed as congestive heart failure was a bit thoughtless, although I don’t believe anyone took offence—probably no one noticed. The pendulum, however, had swung, and the next week saw me rising at six-thirty to run, what I figured was, three miles. It took me far more than thirty minutes though. But in my defense, I had Booker with me. He tends to slow me down.

So on day two of this extended period of health consciousness (it lasted all of two days), I was running in the oldest part of town known as Old Salem with Booker along. Booker is usually pretty good on a run, although he does much better on a walk, as do I. We sync pretty well unless there is something he just has to sniff or a familiar tree that is in need of re-freshening. If I am not diligent and attentive my arm can get yanked pretty hard, and soon I am forced to realize that yelling at your dog in public is an extremely socially unacceptable act. Weather is a factor as well. We can’t run in the summer because Booker’s black coat acts like solar panels and he gets extremely overheated. The best time for running with Booker is when the weather resembles his natural environment—think Nova Scotia in early March.

On this day the weather conditions were a little warm, and Booker was falling behind, which meant that I had to run with my left arm a bit behind me. It was looking like a good enough reason to stop running and start walking, but I hadn’t reached that point yet. We were running down Main Street which is literally the original main street of town that extends all the way into the modern downtown area. This segment is lined with restored or reconstructed 18th century buildings and is paved with embedded cobblestones. The sidewalks are paved with uneven bricks, and running here is a careful endeavor. If the streets are relatively empty, it is better to run on the street than the sidewalk because there is less of a chance of breaking a femur. We were on a downhill stretch, and I was catching my breath as we had just finished an uphill grade that I probable could have walked faster than I ran it. Maybe the endorphins had me in a daze, but my mind seemed to have been blank at that moment.

Suddenly there was a great deal of barking and Booker shot from his lethargic pace right behind me to my right side and forward, at a position of two o’clock. I was jerked out of my lull by the sight of a small rat-like blur headed straight in our direction. I vaguely caught the image of a man shouting “No” or “stop” or something, but nothing registered right away. Then I realized what was happening, it was Toby, the Jack Russell, and he was charging for Booker’s neck.

I don’t really know the dog’s real name, although I’ve heard it shouted by his owner a few times. Usually, at that time, nomenclature is the last thing I am concerned with as my primary objective is keeping the eight pound devil-spawn from ripping out my dog’s esophagus. It’s sort of like Gremlins meets Benji. I feel Toby is an apt name for the dog though; nothing against the name Toby, in fact it sounds just innocuous enough so the ferocity of the actual beast is put in relief against the cuteness of the name. The real name of the beast should be Himmler, or Beelzebub, or Bubo, or Virus.

We’ve had confrontations before. On a stretch through the Moravian cemetery, known as God’s Acre, an anything but God-like creature came darting out of the cross-paths and bit Booker on the butt. In this instance the owner also ineffectually protested to his dog, who definitely controls the relationship. After wrenching Booker away from the Hitler of dogs, I breathlessly made some remark about the dog having a Napoleon complex and we went on our way. But we would encounter the Jack Russell in the future. Thankfully, at these times, he would be on a leash, which is how he should have stayed. But for some reason, at times, his owner gives him free reign of Old Salem knowing that this little dog is capable of dismembering a bull, like those piranhas you read about who reduce a horse to a mere skeleton in a matter of minutes.

Here is my theory as to why the Jack Russell hates Booker so much. I’m sure dog experts will disagree, and I don’t profess to being knowledgeable about the animal kingdom, but I believe that dogs instinctively do as they were bred to do for hundreds of years. Toby, being a Terrier, was bred to bring larger animals, such as boar, down so the hunter could get a good shot or whatever (I know even less about hunting). When Toby sees Booker he doesn’t see what I see, a friendly harmless pooch with bad breath and a fondness for cheese, he sees a snorting, rooting, wild pig. The confusion is understandable, living in Old Salem; Toby has probably never seen a pig. But Booker is about the right size and color of the Belgian Wild Boar or something, so Toby goes for it; it is his big chance to show what he’s born to do; to exude his purpose. Either that or he’s protecting his master, I haven’t quite decided.

Either way, on this day he was bearing down on me and Booker with astonishing speed. It would be interesting to do a size/speed ratio on this dog. At this level I’m amazed that he didn’t break the sound barrier.

When he reached the point where he was about two feet away Toby slowed up so he could ready himself for a strategic lunge. As I said earlier, Booker had shot forward to greet the attack. I had stopped running and was desperately trying to pull Booker behind me to get between the two pissed off dogs. The owner, some twenty yards away, seemed to be still in the same spot, yelling absently, and taking his time in gaining control over his dog. By pulling Booker back, I inadvertently exposed his backside to yet another butt-bite. Before I could stomp loudly in front of Toby to get him to back off, the Terrier had given Booker a good chomp on the rump. My reaction to this was to let Booker defend himself and let the leash out. Maybe a good bite from a set of jaws with much more poundage per square inch would settle the matter for Toby.

This was a bad idea. Toby was so fast, and by this time Booker and I were so entangled in the leash, that by having Booker go forward, I again exposed him to Toby. This time Toby went for Booker’s neck. He bit down and held on. This was a tragic looking spectacle, and I took the opportunity to swing the entire mass of lab, terrier and leash around and give Toby a hard and well placed punt. It made a little hollow sound; like poonk. He let go.

For the first time I witnessed Toby without resolve and in retreat. He ran backwards a little, still barking, but with less ferocity, and scooted off to our left and out of sight. His owner was somewhere near, but I didn’t even bother to try and look at him. I wouldn’t have made a half-hearted witticism about Napoleon this time. I quickly untangled myself and Booker and kept on jogging, trying to put distance between Toby and Booker. Booker kept his stride, and a few hundred yards down the street I stopped and checked him out. He seemed fine. No problem.

We haven’t encountered Toby since. I have a feeling that his owner took little heed of the fact that his blood-thirsty beast wanted to murder an innocent Frisbee catcher. There are some folks who are oblivious of the effect that their sphere has on others. Toby is probably still calling the shots around that house, and it won’t do me any good to stay pissed about it. One thing I won’t do is report the dog—have the dog suffer for the shortcomings of his owner. But if the dog comes our way again, I believe that I will be justified in scoring the winning field goal for Booker State.