Wagging Days

Even a little sweet dog has to find out one day that not all men or dogs are nice and friendly and that life can give some bad surprises, and yesterday it was Maja's turn.

The neighborhood that we are living in is full of dogs, and unfortunately many of them are treated quite badly. Most of them never get out of their backyards, they never get excercised or get to go for a good walk, and many of them seem to be permanently leashed. It is quite a tragedy.

Close to us - and on one of our walking routes - there is a huge German Shepherd that is running around behind fences in a yard. He is big and goofy and barks loudly at everyone passing by. Maja was totally unafraid of him from the first day she was brave enough to go the distance, and she loved to go to the fence to meet him. I have to admit that I didn't think he was dangerous, I somehow thought he was just showing off.

Yesterday he attacked.

When we passed the yard on our way home from walk, he suddenly came straight to the fence and pressed himself underneath and then launced at Maja. Once he was on our side of the fence, there was no barking, he just went straight and with full force for Maja's throat. I don't know what would have happened if I had not been there (which would not have happened, but still..), but this was not for fun or showing off. He took a good jaw-grip around Maja's neck and started to pull and shake and Maja started screaming. It went really fast. I grabbed the dog's neck and pulled as fast and as hard as I could, shook him hard, threw him away and gave him a good kick. When he came back again, I yelled at him, and then he gave up and ran back home. Wow, it was fast, maybe just five-six seconds? And still Maja was screaming, like she was in complete shock. I felt so incredibly sorry for her, but resisted the temptation to comfort her too much..

It must have hurt, although she didn't have any wounds afterwards, but maybe the shock was the worst. She has never experienced anything like this before, never experienced being attacked or experienced anyone wanting to hurt her. Maybe it was some trust or naivity that was broken yesterday. That would be really sad. Or, more probably, that is a human way of thinking, and as Cesar Millan points out; dogs do not live in the past the same way as we do, they live in the moment. Well, not completely so; when Jurgita went out with her today, she was quite a bit more careful than earlier. But when she found some smaller dogs to play with, she was as trusting and as happy as before. And when I came home to play with her, she was so happy and exited.
She is really an amazing dog :) It was a small warning sign for us also, that not all dogs we meet are as friendly, and sooner or later I am afraid that we will find out the same about people.