Mad Dog

This happened about a week ago. I probably should have written about it while it was fresher in my memory, but it was still too traumatic. Yes, I was traumatized by a blood hound. It's okay, you can laugh. Every one else has...everyone but me.

Last Sunday my dog (you know, Sheriff John T. Chance, aka Chance) went missing. We were pretty sure what had happened. The neighbor has a blood hound named Al (as in Al Capone?) who breaks thru his radio fence and runs to our house every chance he gets, which lately has been daily. He shows up and he and Chance frolic and wrestle and take turns being top dog in the doggy-style. Chance has about 2 acres or so in his fence area so they run from one side to the other chewing each others ears and snapping at each others feet. Evidently during one of these passes they got close to the fence and just barreled right on thru it (to be clear, this is conjecture...we don't know how he got out exactly, but think this is pretty close to how it happened).

Once he found himself on the other side of the fence there was no way he was going to take the shock coming back across. He was seen, with Al, in our yard arund 3:30 pm. He was missing at 4. The only dog at our house then was Katie (aka Katie Elder).
I was at work and found out about all this at 7:30 when I called home. The Big Man had spent a couple of hours looking for them. A hunter had spotted them about a quarter of a mile away in a pasture, headed for the woods. So Big Daddy looks and looks, but can't find them anywhere.

I decided to take the long way around on my way home after work that night. I had been to the grocery and it was about 12:15 am. Lo and behold I found the two frolicking puppies just exiting a stand of cane. I stopped my truck, got out and called Chance and he came running to get in. Unfortunately, Al bounded right on up after him. I grabbed him by his collar and tried to pull him out and he growled at me. Then he tried to bite me. Nice.

I shut the door and did a little jumping up and down and a little more yelling and screaming. Chance curled up in the driver's seat to take a nap while Al sprawled across the console and licked his head. Chance's head. Al then tried to curl up in the passenger seat but couldn't quite fit because of my gi-normous dinner bucket. Oh, did I mention that they were both very, very muddy? And have you ever seen the size of a blood hound's paws? So, I open the door and attempt to scoot Chance out of my seat so I could just drive them to our house. He was having none of that. So I had my left foot on the running board, my right foot on the brake, my left hand on the steering wheel. I reach up to the steering column with my right hand to drop it into gear and the frickin' dog lunges at me and tries to bite me again. Motherfucker.

I'm done. Luckily I had my cell phone with me so I called and woke up The Man. This is already a really long post, so I'll just cut to the chase. We got the dogs out of my truck. Chance jumped in Man's truck. When Al tried to follow Man tried to stop him and he nearly took Man's arm off. Man beat him with maglite. Al jumped in Man's truck anyway. Had a little trouble rousing neighbor from his slumber...finally did. He managed to coax his dog into his truck. The End.

Well, it was the end for Al. I like to think he had a brain tumor and was going to die soon anyway. But I had a dream that he was inside the house last night, growling at me.

I am traumatized for life.