Mohammed

5/10/09

First of all, today was a lovely Mother's Day. I had the chance to host a brunch for my mom and the rest of our family. It was something that I knew would be special to mom, and so it was just fabulous that I finally had a big enough place to accomodate everyone.

Later in the day, I went to the Max Fund to help walk some dogs with my friend who volunteers there. I took out one dog who seemed pretty chill in the cage-just sitting there. When we went out, he kept lunging and was pretty out of control. I was told by another volunteer that he needed to wear a choke chain because sometimes the regular collars come off. I felt bad, though, because he kept choking himself on the leash. I put him back inside, but by this time all of the staff and volunteers had gone home (except for my friend who was outside).

I took the choke chain off the dog (named "Mohammed") and instead of going in his cage, he ran over to a dog in a cage a few rows back. I don't know what his problem with this dog is, but he was ready to fight-white foamy drool was coming out of his mouth, and he had that viscious face of a dog on the attack.

As Cesar Millan of The Dog Whisperer would put it, he was in the "red zone". Nobody was around to help me, and all of the dogs were going crazy by this point-imagine about twenty dogs all barking their heads off at the same time. I didn't want to get bit, but I equally did not want to get caught in this pickle.

I pushed the dog away from the other dog's cage (with a little fear, I will admit). When he was not right by the other guy's cage, he was calmer and I was able to get the choke chain back on him. We put him back in the cage, I made sure the other dogs were OK, and I waited for Mohammed to chill out again. Oops! I guess there is really a reason why you can't just go around the Max Fund without a volunteer or staff person around.

My heart hasn't beat that fast in a long, long time!