Chasing down the dogs

When you run outside you never know what you may run into. Most of the time running is fairly uneventful, but sometimes you run past something interesting like a deer or rabit, but every once in a while it can be down right scary. I remember while running once in Wisconsin along a lonely stretch of Hwy 64 miles and miles from absolutely anything, I came across a big black bear. That was quite disturbing and I did not handle it the same way I do when I run across dogs barking at me. I just stoped and waited paitently for the bear to cross the road and hoped he would ignore me. Fortunatly he did.

Dogs are not my favorite animals. It may go back to my childhood when on two occasions I was bit by dogs and almost (at least in my mind) killed by a pack of them. Besides they are loud, slobber all over, jump on you with their dirty paws and leave piles of feces for you to step in.

My philosophy when dogs come upon me during a run is to yell at them as loud as I can, "Get Outta Here" and generally I will run at them if they continue to approach. Today I had two dogs come at me and I know that dogs are always worse in packs and I never know what they are capable of. They started crossing the road and I ran at them yelling. There being two of them, I knew I could be in some trouble if they decided to attack me and I was convinced I was going to have to kick the lead dog with my Asics as hard as I could to immobilize at least one of them. Fortunatly they bolth fled just as I was approaching kicking distance and I did not have to harm either dog. Please if you have a dog, keep him chained or get a fence, those of us who run will thank you!

That got my blood boiling and it took a while to calm down, but the rest of the 6 miles was uneventful, and was actually my best run in weeks dispite the 80 degree heat and partial sun already at 6:30 in the morning. However I do have to thank Jack (my 1 year old) for waking up screeming at 6:00. I am not 100% sure I would have gotten out of bed if it wasn't for him!