Before I freak you out, I will tell you that to the best of my knowledge, Delilah is okay.

Today I’m going to rant and rave and swear and self-doubt myself, so if you’re not into it, I’m not offended if you move on to another blog.

Yesterday I camethisclose to shooting a dog with my pepper blaster and I’m good and pissed off about it. It’s these God Damn Dumb Ass Dog Owners and I’m sick and fucking tired of my dog bearing the brunt of their stupidity.

We’ve had an encounter with this dog before. You can read about that HERE.

Since that incident, I’ve only seen them walking their dog once or twice. Most of the time when we walk by their yard, the dog is outside, barking and biting at the fence. Delilah has learned to tune him out.

If he only knew he could climb that gate.

Right now our walks are short, mostly due to the heat but also due to some construction on our street. Most of our walks are just around the block.

As I mentioned there is construction on our street, so there’s a lot of sniffing to be done.

As we approached the house with the dog, I saw the dog at the gate (of course) and the owner was also at the gate. I could see he was attempting to come out of the gate and the dog was right there.

It happened so fast. There was a split second where I maybe could have turned around. I’m not sure how that would have turned out. Maybe we would have gotten away, maybe the dog would have ended up chasing us. All I know is it’s like a fucking train wreck, you KNOW it’s happening, but you either can’t react quick enough or your certain it won’t happen.

So there’s a chance I could have avoided it, but I can’t say that with certainty. So I kept walking, letting Delilah lead the way.

The town trucks were there and just as we got to the front of the truck, I saw the man open his gate, sticking his foot in front of his dog. But it was ineffective, the dog took off hell bent for destruction heading our way.

I SHOULD have turned around and run, I SHOULD have pulled out my pepper blaster and nailed that little fucker right away, but I didn’t. Instead, I said, “Heads up Delilah, there’s a dog heading your way” and I dropped her leash.

I dropped her leash so she could defend herself because the last thing I want is for her to feel helpless when she’s being attacked.

I also thought since she was much larger, a snark from her would be enough to send the Jackal back thru the gates of hell.

Apparently Jackal’s aren’t smart.

Instead what ensued was 20 to 40 seconds (it seemed like minutes) of this dog growling and snarking and my dog defending herself. A couple of times she had him pinned underneath her, and in my opinion, a smart dog would have thrown in the towel.

Not this dumb ass. No, this little idiot with the Napoleon complex continued snarking and mouthing Delilah.

To be honest, I think it was just that. A lot of mouthing and noise.

As soon as I saw the dog wasn’t giving up, I starting calling Delilah and she came back to me. And that fucking asshole dog turned around and came at her again.

At this point, the DADO was standing there trying to call his dog, so I stepped in between Delilah and the dog and said, “GET” or “GO” or something along those lines. I really can’t remember what.

The dog turned towards its owner, then back towards me again. At this point, I had my spitter out and I pushed the safety to the side and pointed it right at the dog.

“GO”

Maybe it was the pepper blaster in his dog’s face, maybe the dog decided he’d lost the fight, I’m not sure, it was so fast and such a blur. But at this point, the owner picked up the dog.

“Bad Dog Tito, Bad Dog.” Yeah, cause’ that makes it all okay. Jack wagon.

Naturally he apologized and asked if Delilah was okay. I ran my hands over her looking for blood but couldn’t find any. She was wet on her chest, but that is where the dog was pinned, so I think it was just saliva.

Like I said, I think it was just a lot of mouthing and noise, but it shook me to my very core.

I told him I thought she was and I walked away. I didn’t even ask him about his dog because quite frankly, I could give two shits.

How could I let my dog down like that? WHAT should I have done, could I have prevented it from happening? If I’d turned and run, would the dog have chased us?

How do you train or prepare for something like that? It’s happened before, but it’s been a while so it came right out of the blue.

Maybe I don’t live in the DADO capital of the world, maybe it’s me, maybe I AM the Dumb Ass Dog Owner.