Today at Jennys house of child care I had Olivia (3), Naarah (1), Parker (8) and my 3 sons. We are happily playing outside in the mid morning enjoying the cool 60 something weather.
Knowing that soon we will be going to the library for a scheduled class for David I begin to convince the kids to go inside for a snack.
As they are eating, I run out to the van to wrangle yet another car seat into the back bench of my van. I have half of my body in and half of my body out, twisting this darn seat into place when I hear it behind me. A low and very purposeful growling dog. I freeze. I move my eyes to see where the dog is. I see nothing but believe me I HEAR something very clearly telling me it is there. I turn my head - still I see nothing. I slowly and carefully back out of the van and now I see it. Not a dog I recognize. (there are plenty on this street - half of which at some time have been in my yard before) It is between my garage and the neighbors fence (about 2 feet in width filled to the overflow with tiger lillies in bloom) It is about the size and build of a German Shepard but it is white and brown. It looks like it might be stuck or injured but I don't stick around long enough to find out for sure.
As I looked it over a few seconds it gets more and more angry and vocal about its irritation with me being in its space. I walk backwards slowly to the porch. I stand there for a minute deciding if I will call the police or just go in grab my pepper spray and a baseball bat and get on with it. I go call the Evansville police - (I did have a grandma who talked some sense into me). Well truth be known I grabbed the baseball bat first, then reconsidered. 'Didn't think it would be good to have the kids see that. Imagine what Caleb would have thought the NEXT time I gave him the 3 count! HA!
40 minutes later the police show up. It is the officer in town that looks like he is 12. I kid you not. He has pulled me over before (for a brake light that was burned out) and I am thinking - oh wonderful. A houseful of kiddos and you are going to be the man standing between me and that dog - should have gotten the bat and pepper spray.
After a short amount of investigating he determines he needs help. (no kidding!) He calls animal control at the Rock County Humane Society. They will be 20 - 30 minutes in arriving. He asks if he can just pull into the driveway and sit in his vehicle to watch if the dog decides to venture out. I say sure, but if he would rather, he could sit on the back screened-in porch with me and my kiddos. He comes in.
David is elated! The police man is here - new blood to talk too! David announces:"My mom is in the middle of making Snickerdoodles -she makes the best cookies ever!" He smiles and I offer him one like the little Susie homemaker that I am. He accepts. In return he offers an Evansville 'Junior Officer ' badge sticker to each of my bambinos. Again David is elated. At this gesture David feels it is necessary to tell him every thing David can remember that is related to policemen. Including my recent speeding escapade.
David: "My mom was speeding, going 13 over the limit, and she forgot to use the radar detector and the police put on the lights, but luckily mom got grace because she, like never speeds, or anything."
David:" In Stoughton my mom got her purse stolen, by 3 people! The 2 women are out of jail now but the man is in prison because he did lots of other bad stuff too! and my dad he has seen like all kinds of accidents. Once my dad saw a man get hit by a car, right here on main street!"
Now in between all this story telling, you need to know the other kids are jumping in and interrupting with their own special stories. I bet he wished he would have sat in his car and had some peace and quiet.
The people from the human society arrive. They have these poles with a loop on the end to trap the dogs neck. As they begin to trap the dog we see it come out of its hiding place and realize it is not hurt nor is it trapped or stuck and it is very unhappy. I run and get the video camera because I am pretty sure we are going to have an insurance claim coming on behalf of that policeman, I really thought the dog was stuck or injured back there, but it wasn't. Thankfully it was hard for the kids to see what they were doing in the bushes because there was a lot of high pitched screeching and barking and then they emerge with dog in trap and they lead it/drag it to the cage in the human society van.
Thank goodness it never ventured out into the main part of our yard - can you imagine? How would I have protected all 6 kids against that dog? It really freaked me out when I realized it was free to roam about, but just didn't.
Before the policeman left he said thanks for the cookie and how now we would have a good story to tell. I thought to myself:"Dude we don't need an angry stray dog for a good story to tell - all we need is to get up in the morning - this mom business is loaded with good stories to tell and I have a years worth of blog entries to prove it."
