The Judgemental Idiot Part 1

As you know, I have no tolerance for judgemental idiots. I thought I’d already run into my share of them, I was soooo wrong. Chili and I had started doing morning walks. We’d walk around the corner and up a road, which is a very steep hill, and then back to the house. I really enjoyed our morning walks. It was quiet, we got a good workout, we would always watch for the neighbourhood deer, we knew all the neighbourhood dogs. Chili was used to the routine and would simply walk by everything with a bit of interest. It was beautiful.

One Sunday, the three of us were walking the regular morning route. As we were approaching the bottom of the hill, I saw a man with his dog. I recognized the dog from our morning walks because it would usually be out in its yard when we would walk by. There was also someone walking behind us with their dog. At that time, we were still having a problem with Chili lunging. She would do it probably 90% of the time. Of course Chili lunged at the dog. Typically I would walk Chili but if she started to lunge, Brad would grab the lead. Not because I couldn’t manage her, but let’s face it, he’s stronger and can manage her with one hand. We got her under control and kept walking. As we were heading up the hill I turned around and saw both men talking to each other. Other than that, we had a great walk.

On Monday morning, Chili and I set out for our morning walk. It was a beautiful and cool morning. We went to the top of the hill, saw the deer and the morning dogs. On our way back down, I saw a man walking out of his driveway towards me. It looked like he wanted to talk to me, then I saw a camera in his hand. I wasn’t really sure what was happening at first, then I could hear the camera clicking....he was taking pictures of us. Out of nowhere, he launched into a speech about how he’d already phoned the pound and they know all about us. That he’s talked to the whole neighbourhood about how Chili is a vicious dog and nobody wants us around. He kept repeating that she’s vicious. Now, if you know anything about Chili, you’d know that she loves people. So as he was telling me how terrible she was, she was pulling forward, trying to go say hello to him. Since I was holding her back, she was rearing up on her back legs. He proceeded to take more pictures and was telling me, “see, see, she’s vicious, see.” I told him that she wasn’t vicious, she loved people, and simply wanted to go over to him and say hello. He told me that she’s so bad, that it takes two people to hold her back and that she wanted to kill his dog. (He was referring to our walk by yesterday)

It took everything I had to stay calm. You can’t reason with a crazy, self-righteous person on a bullying power trip. I told him that she wasn’t vicious, she gets along fine with other dogs, in fact she’s surrounded by them when she’s at daycare, she’s never been in a fight, she’s never bitten another dog, I’m working hard with her, etc, etc. Every word I would say, he would follow it with, “I doubt that”. He said the pound told him to talk to me and take pictures. (This, is talking to me??) He was then going to submit a formal report against Chili. I asked him why he wanted to make trouble for us, why he’s never just talked to me, why he’s making assumptions when he doesn’t know anything. Of course he didn’t have any answers. I told him to do whatever he felt he needed to do, and I walked away.

I kept looking over my shoulder as we walked home. I was afraid he would follow us. If I saw anyone behind me, I would have walked the other way and called Brad to pick us up. My adrenaline was pumping and I could barely think. All I knew was this guy wanted bad things for Chili, and I wasn’t going to allow it. Now what?