DOGS!

Our new apartment complex is doggy central. Roughly 80% of the residents have at least 1 dog. I do not happen to be fond of dogs. Surprisingly, I have had been very calm with these dogs. I have even enjoyed most of them. Virginia has very strict leash laws and we were assured by the manager that they are tough on offenders here. One warning and then the dog is out. Management keeps a picture of every dog on file and the owners have to submit immunization records as well. (Personally, I credit my lack of fear to some recent counseling I went through that seems to have removed my general fears and anxiety. Yay God!)

We have seen a few dogs off their leashes but only when playing ball or frisbee with their owners. When the owner sees someone in the distance they take hold of the dog and leash it right away. It has been fun to see the boys petting the dogs and interacting with them. We have all fallen in love with Roxie, an old black lab that lives on the first floor of our building.

Today, unfortunately, we had a frustrating experience. The boys and I were headed back from the pool. Littlest was about 25 feet in front of me, but easily in sight. (He's been very independent lately.) Biggest was about 3 feet behind me, always walking slow. Without any warning, two collie types, looking to be about 1 year old, came tearing out of the building we were passing and ran straight at Littlest. He screamed and bolted for me. I started yelling at the dogs and for Littlest to NOT run. The first dog was now in Littlest's face as he was hysterically screaming. I was rushing to him still yelling at him to not run from the dog. The second dog ran past me at Biggest who was now starting to scream and run after me. I'm yelling at both of them to calm down while the owner ran up and got ahold of both dogs the whole time telling me "Don't worry, they're friendly." For the most part I was very calm. I HONESTLY wasn't afraid of the dogs. The dogs obviously wanted to play with the kids. I was more concerned that the kids would freak out the dogs with their screaming and I want them to understand that you never run from a dog.

The dogs didn't bother me. I was very irritated with the owner. He never apologized. He rambled on about how it never occured to him that someone would be afraid of the dogs and that the reason he got the dogs was so that HIS children wouldn't have a fear of them. When I told him the boys were not used to being around dogs he had the nerve to suggest that I get a dog so the kids would be comfortable around them. He told the boys to not be afraid of the dogs because they were friendly. Easy for the owner to say. He knows his dogs and is taller them them by about 4 feet. The dogs faces were the same height as Littlest's. Poor little guy. As we walked away we talked about what happened. I reassured them that they were fine and that the dogs were nice. I told them that the man was sorry, to which Biggest pointed out that he didn't SAY sorry. I reminded them that he put the dogs on their leashes and how much we like dogs. For the next hour Littlest brought up the dogs and how they scared him. We talked some more about it and I tried to reassure him. He said he doesn't like Roxie anymore - she wasn't even involved.

It is so frustrating to not be able to protect your children from fears. There is nothing I can do to change what happened. We'll continue to go out and hopefully he won't hold onto this. He's a tough little guy and will hopefully forget about it by tomorrow. I have no plans to file a report with the management. I don't want the guy to lose his dogs but I sure hope he thinks twice next time before letting the dogs out of the apartment unleashed.