I took this photo of my neighbors' house yesterday with my cellphone. A few days ago, Sophie and I came out on our porch just as the mailman, Joe, was walking up the steps. Sophie approached him suspiciously, but relaxed when he scritched her."You're much nicer than our last mailman," I told him. "He pepper-sprayed her through the screen door."
"What? Really? That's not right. If the dog's behind a door and barking, it's just doing its job. Doesn't bother me."
He paused. "But did you hear about Rocket? He came through the front window yesterday. Scared the hell out of me."That's Rocket on the left, with a visiting buddy. I took this picture last year when I was moving in. Rocket, like many Wiemaraners, has a lot of energy and is a sweet dog, but kinda dumb. My standard question when I meet Wiemaraner owners is "So, what has he destroyed?" The answer is usually a litany of gutted couches, mangled door frames and shredded children's toys.
Rocket is no exception. Sadly, he gets little exercise, so I have occasionally had to return him to his yard when he decides to go for his own walks. And of course, when someone comes to the door, he lunges into guard-dog mode with crazy abandon.
In this case he lunged right through the window at Joe. Who whipped out his mace and yelled. Rocket took two steps and stood there, baffled. Looked at Joe. Looked back at the window. He wasn't hurt, just startled as hell.Luckily, Rocket's owner was home. She came running and corralled the dog.
"It took a long time for my heart to stop pounding!" said Joe.
Scary/Funny I had a dog go through a screen door after a mailman, once. Good thing owner was home.
ReplyDeleteWow, that's one crazy dog to jump through the window!
ReplyDeleteour mailman feeds half her lunch to my dog (the 22 pound quivering goof ball)just about every single day. Most of the time he gets right up in the truck and sits with her while they eat. When they're done, he gets down and she drives away. It's the funniest dog mail person relationship I've ever seen but it makes them both very happy. I can't imagine what he'll think if she's replaced by someone who doesn't feed him half a sandwich in the driveway or reacts with surprise when he jumps right up into the truck.
ReplyDeleteI didn't realize that mail deliverers were armed with mace! Makes sense I guess. I often feel feel bad when my rottweiler barks incessantly at the mail lady. But your mail man is right, they are just doing their job. It's sort of comforting to be protected.
ReplyDeletean appropriately named dog, no less! makes me appreciate that my dog is only dumb and not destructo :) our UPS delivery folk always leave dog treats under the packages at our door for kaweah (aka dumb dumb). under, because we have many foxes, coyotes, and other critters running about. rocket is cute, too bad he doesn't get to run around as he needs to :(
ReplyDeleteI hope the only damage was to the door, mbp!
ReplyDeleteJulie, yes, he's a little on the crazy side. Though I don't think he was expecting the window to break.
Alecto, lucky dog! That's so sweet.
Summer, I think mail carriers and meter readers suffer the most dog bites of any population. I'd be a little paranoid, too! (The last mailman was too much so, unhappily.) But it is good to have a watchdog.
Clever UPS man, Jen. I'll bet Kaweah has put together that UPS man = treats and not UPS man = come to kill us all!
I wish Rocket's owners paid more attention to him. He'd be happier and much less of a handful.