dog altercation

Something unpleasant happened to me this afternoon, so let me disperse my bad feelings by allowing everyone to share in my outrage. I was walking Boo home from the field this afternoon when we passed by two men walking a yellow lab. Boo barked and lunged at the other dog; I restrained him and apologized and kept walking, reprimanding Boo and keeping him tight on the leash.

This is about as much fault as I will admit. Boo has what has been clinically diagnosed (by a smart, intuitive ASPCA trainer) as On-Leash Aggression. I am not making this up. You can Google it if you don't believe me. Basically what it means is that he is sweet and great and playful with other dogs when he is off-leash, say, at the dog run, but when his leash is on he feels less in control of his surroundings and barks at other dogs. He has never bitten another dog (though he has been bitten three times without provocation), nor does it ever escalate into anything more than loud barking. I'm a responsible owner, I've taken him through training school, he's earned his "Canine Good Citizen" certificate, and I keep him on leash on the street.

Okay, so this is what happened. I was a block from my house when Boo barked at another dog. I apologized and progressed onward toward my house. One of the two men started walking after me screaming - yes, already screaming - "That dog is vicious, I'm going to call the cops, we're gonna have that dog put down." I kept walking because this is a Brooklyn-developed strategy for dealing with crazies - ignore them, and they will leave you alone. But this man kept following me, and then he whipped out his cell phone and started threatening to call the cops. At this point, I turned around to see a 6'2", 200 lb. angry white man, shoulders aggressively lowered, stalking toward me, and I said, "Leave me alone, I'm just trying to get on my way." He said, "I'm not going to leave it alone, your dog needs to be put down, and I'm going to call the cops." (Bear in mind that ALL that had transpired at this point was that Boo had barked at another dog. I think it is not absurd to suggest that all dog owners have had another dog bark at their dog. Boo was attacked once by an off-leash Rottweiler and I literally kicked that fat bitch off him, e.g.) I tried to keep walking but at this point both of them, both tall, white, and over 200 lbs., were following and haranguing me down the block, even though I informed them that their behavior was incredibly menacing and much more threatening than whatever my dog had done.

Because, yes, male readers of this blog, if there are any, need to know this. You should not chase a woman half your size down the block while threatening to kill her dog. This is harassment. The two men were incredibly, immediately belligerent and coming at me as if we were about to have a barfight. No one should have to be taught that this is scary behavior. So I ran across the street to where my neighbor was unloading her grocercies and I said, "I'm sorry to bug you but these guys are following me and I just wanted someone to see." My kindly neighbor, interrupted in her suburban workaday, turned around and said to the guys, "Why don't you just leave her alone?" Crazy agitated aggressor said, "I'm going to call the cops on her! That's why!" I was clearly just trying to leave the situation and go home. The dogs were already separated and disinterested in each other, though because there were two aggressive roid ragers bearing down upon me, Boo looked a little disconcerted. Kindly neighbor responded, "She's trying to leave, why don't you just let her go?"

I figured these two men - at this point it became really just one lunatic doing all the shouting - were dangerous because of how quickly they'd gotten angry and I was concerned that all the anger mismanagement would lead to some sort of violence, and I decided that I should just run the block home and they wouldn't be able to find me once I ducked into the garden. So I bolted down the block. They were two balding paunchy guys and I easily could have put enough distance to disappear between myself and them (1) had I not been wearing flip-flops and (2) had I more than the length of one straight block to make my getaway, but you know what? They chased me. Yes, I was sprinting down the block, scared out of my gourd, bawling, and screaming "DAAAAAAADDDDD!!!!!!!" as loudly as I could (I didn't scream "Help!" because the fight-or-flight instinct in me, apparently, only produces the word "Dad!"), and these two men were chasing me. Yes, I live in Brooklyn and when people chase you this is not to be taken lightly. I saw the man in the back speaking into his cell phone while running after me, and I heard him say, "Yes, this vicious dog is running away!" and I decided that I would take my chances, go back to the original spot where the kindly neighbor remained witness, and talk it through with the cops rather than look like I'd done something wrong. I kept my distance from them but returned back the original spot.

They were talking to the 911 dispatcher, and so was I. When the 911 dispatcher asked me, "Wait, what do they look like? Black? Hispanic? White?" and I said, "They are two old white guys." The two old white guys overheard and said, "What? That's fucking RACIST! That's FUCKING RACIST! You're RACIST!" I realized that I had been trying to reason with lunacy and that anyone whose anger had so consumed his mind that a simple and legitimate description of his appearance would send him into a raging hysteria was very dangerous and my instinct to run away was probably a right one. I shouted back at them that the dispatcher had wanted to know their race, and the when the dispatcher asked me how old they looked, I said both of them looked like they were in their late sixties, even though one looked to be about fifty. (Why did I say this? Well, honestly, I just wanted to insult them. I felt no qualms about insulting them, especially when the cops showed up and they pointed a stabbing finger at me and said, "It's that girl!" I am almost 27, but my anger over the condescending "girl" moniker was nicely counterbalanced by the obvious inequality of two grown-ass white men sicking the cops on a girl.)

Four - FOUR! - cop cars showed up instantly, to my great relief. Now, it is true that I am currently suing the NYPD, and worked last year for a place built by suits against the NY Dept. of Corrections, but I think I can both disagree with excessive police force and appreciate when cops do their jobs well, and I have been very lucky that my two run-ins with the Palo Alto PD - the first being when I was chased, yes chased, down a similar block half a mile away by a mentally-incapacitated man who winked at me and followed me off a bus when I was thirteen - have been very positive. So the cops show up, make the two guys stand thirty feet away from me, and then ask us questions. It becomes pretty clear that the cops think the men are insane for (1) calling them, only to report that the reason for the call was that my dog had barked at their dog and (2) charging their 400 lbs. of fat white flesh at a 135 lb. woman and then accusing her dog of being too aggressive. One of these steroid-addled pots calling the demure canine kettle black situations, I think. Later, when I went to drop off flowers at my neighbor's house to thank her for her assistance, she said, "It was obvious that the cops were on your side." I was additionally vindicated when Roid Rager #1 yelled angrily at the cops and gesticulated menacingly at them. I think nothing makes cops believe your story of animal aggression less than when you start acting aggressively at the cops.

While RR #1 was talking to the cops, I turned to look at RR #2, who was standing about 30 feet down the street from me. He was staring off into the distance, probably imagining himself as a stoic George Washington statue on a noble equestrian mount, so I said to him, "You probably think you're right, but I know you're not going to feel good about yourself when you get home. Just think about what it feels like for a woman to be chased by two big men down the street." He didn't acknowledge me but I take solace in knowing that his eternal punishment will be to run from an angry throng of Newark lesbians.

An officer then came over to me and explained to me that there was no violation, my dog was leashed and had only barked at, but not bitten, the other dog, there was not even anything to report, and that I was free to go. I dried my wet face on my wet shirt and walked down the block. Even as I left, RR #1 was angrily gesticulating with his meaty hands in the air above a small woman cop, who stepped away from him and held her hands up in a Whoa! gesture. I went home, pretended like nothing happened, and then drove to Ruth's house so I could cry to her about getting chased by two ugly men.

The younger one looked like the guy on That 70's Show:

only even more unattractive, if that can be believed.

I really suspect that race had something to do with this, or at least that if my neighbor had not been Asian, and the cop responding had not been Asian, then I would have been hassled for a lot longer than I actually was. I told my parents the story after I got home from hanging out with Ruth and Olivia and it set off a three-hour conversation about how they have experienced 31 years of chairs ergonomically curved for white people's girths, white cashiers serving the people in line behind them while totally not seeing them, white people not making room for them on the sidewalk, white people manipulating the law and the police to their advantage. We talked about TB Andy (Andy Speaker, that asshole who took his rare strain of TB on a transatlantic flight despite his quarantine) and how an Asian person would have been too scared to scoff at the law, and I explained to my dad how short hair was a choice and how I could wear a suit all the time and get respect, and we agreed that I need to make a lot of money and/or develop survival skills so that when the U.S. and China go to war, we can flee to Canada. All the U.S./China war stuff is hyperbole, of course, but it only stands as a proxy to my family's very legitimate, and daily affirmed belief that white people run and rule this country and we will never win fights against them. This, folks, is part of the reason why I'm a lawyer - so I can protect my family from native English speakers.

Anyway, the race politics of this blog are as always in a state of evolution, and new and old readers who aren't down may never understand. I hope some of this makes sense. Upon my parents' urgings, I have to go eat some good luck noodles and enjoy their company at the dinner table now.