just a normal day

            It was a normal day in Griffin Georgia (A suburb south of Atlanta Georgia). I lived on Bicycle Rd. My brother Joey, who was twelve years old at the time, was next door at his friend Robbie’s house. Robby was around the same age as my brother and they were pretty close friends. Robby also had a sister that was my age. We were pretty close friends too, but I don’t remember where she was on this day. I was only six years old and so I couldn’t really hang out with them. I got bored, so I decided to go over to my friend KC’s house. My friend KC was only five, and lived across the street from Robby. He had a long drive way with a trailer sitting off to the left, were his grandma lived. His house was at the end of the drive way. His grandmother owned a dog named bear. It was a chow, which are big fluffy dogs, about the size of a pit bull. The dog got his name for a good reason, he looked like a little bear. This type of dog is known to be very territorial, and aggressive. The dog was on the back corner of the trailer, and was on a chain. The chain was attached to a stake in the ground, at the corner of his doghouse. He would always bark at me whenever I would come over. Even though this would always annoy me as a kid I would just ignore it.

               I went to his house, with the dog barking the whole way, and knocked on the door. His mom answered the door, and I asked if he was home. She said yes and I asked if he could come out and play. He came out and we were playing in the front yard. While we were playing in the yard, the dog seen us and started barking at us. Of course me and him being kids, it didn’t take long for this to get very annoying to us. So eventually we decided to try to make the dog shut up. Well this really wasn’t a good idea, but then again we were kids so we didn’t really think too much about what we were doing. We started out yelling at it, when that didn’t work we got more aggressive and started to throw things at it. We threw pine cones and sticks at him. At this point the dog was going crazy. It seemed like the more we would try to get it to shut up, the more it would go crazy. This is when it pretty much turned into us teasing the dog.

              We would take turns getting close and wait for the dog to try to get us, then move back out of reach and watch him get caught by the chain. We would make him go back and forth trying to get us. I know this sounds really mean, but what can I say?  Kids can be so cruel. As we were teasing him his chain got tangled around the stake in the ground, and made his reach shorter. We continued to harass the dog. Eventually his chain came untangled and I was the unlucky one that he was coming for at the time. He grabbed my leg and pulled me to the ground. I didn’t know what to do, all I could do was scream for help. The dog kept grabbing my leg and thrashing his head back and forth. I mean I think most people have seen what a dog can do when he wants to hurt something. All my friend could really do was scream too. I mean if I was in his shoes I wouldn’t have been able to think of anything, I would have probably just screamed for help too.

           Luckily for me my brother must have heard us screaming from across the street. Him and his friend came to see what was going on. He grabbed a two by four, and hit the dog on the butt with it. The dog turned and tried to get him, but he got back out of reach real quick. I remember seeing the dog turn and start running back towards me, and thinking holy shit! I rolled back doing sort of a back flip, and got out of reach too. I’m still in shock and just sitting there. My brother picked me up and carried me back to the house. My mom came outside and seen my leg covered in blood, and freaked out.

              She ran inside and grabbed a towel, and came back out as quick as she could. Her and my dad put me in the car, she was using the towel to hold my leg up while we were driving to the hospital. I had three gashes on the back of my calf and one across the front of my leg. Luckily for my mom, the way she was holding my leg only let her see the front. She probably would’ve passed out if she had seen the back. I used to watch The Looney Toons Show  as a kid, and Bugs Bunny used to always say (I’m too young to die, I’m too young to die!) whenever something bad was happening. I remember saying that to myself the whole way to the hospital.

               We got to the hospital (Spalding Regional Hospital) and they took me rite in and took the towel off my leg. That’s when my mom finally seen the back of my leg. I also had a couple puncture wounds in my arm as well. They had to give me a shot in each gash to numb the wound. I still remember that sharp pain. I don’t remember any other pain really, just that one. They gave me 25 stitches in my leg, and 2 butterfly stitches in my arm. Then they sent me home all bandaged up.

              They ended up putting the dog to sleep (aka they killed him). My brother got his name in the paper and everything for saving my life. I learned a valuable lesson that day. Respect other animals because they can really mess you up. Looking back I feel bad about the whole thing. Not for me, but for the dog. I mean he was only doing what dogs are supposed to do. Which is protect there property or territory, I don’t know, I don’t think they should have put him to sleep. I feel like it was my fault for messing with the dog in the first place, and I got what I deserved.

           A week or so later we moved to Florida. I remember when we first got there. The first morning I was checking out the house because we got there late the night before. I decided to check out the front yard by myself, and when I walked outside I heard a dog barking down the street. I freaked out and started crying. There were two Boxers a couple houses down from ours. Boxer is another breed of dog that is big and look and sound mean. They had those electric leashes on, you know the ones with no fence but it shocks the dog when he goes to the edge of the yard. I remember being so scared to go by there. It affected me for a long time, but it doesn’t bother me anymore. It was a big part of my life and it taught me a couple of good lessons.