Beware of Dog

In the summer of 2001 I was down south in the Shawnee National Forest monitoring birds. The work involved being out in various sections of the forest for 8-10 hours a day, usually alone. I trained with two veterans who had been involved with this project for several summers. They impressed upon me early on that the most dangerous animal I was likely to come across while in the field was a stray dog, which surprised me quite a bit. I was taught that when stray dog came into the field of vision I was to slow or stop movement, orient myself somewhat away from the dog but never allow it out of my field of vision, and never appear to be directly looking at the dog. If it began running directly towards me, especially without barking I was to collapse into a ball and not move. I found it interesting that the strays I encountered made no attempt to conceal themselves from me or necessarily avoid me by a wide berth, while the coyotes always kept their distance and hid their presence. Luckily the dogs never seemed to be running in packs.

Ever since my experiences that summer I have been wary of strays. I was nervous around unleashed dogs before - when younger, we had neighbors who let their doberman pinschers run free in the front yard and they were aggressive at times (of course any complaints were met with "our dog would never hurt anybody"). Now it's a more fine-tuned awareness. Fast forward to life in our little Central Illinois town. When my son was very young I would put him in a sling and try to walk to church or to the grocery store when the weather was nice. On several occasions we were followed, barked at, chased, and nipped at by unleashed dogs in town. For the most part these dogs had owners who were yelling passively from the porch to "leave them alone," or owners running up to us but a little too late in catching them. Each time I kept walking without looking back, covering my son's dangling legs with my arms as well as I could to protect them from whatever the dog decided to do. There were some pretty tense moments and I know some owners could see the danger too, from the tone in their voices. All of the aggressive dogs here have been larger dogs, above knee height. Fortunately the owners started to keep their dogs contained once they realized I walked pretty regularly - I think concern for the little baby was what did it.

Last week I had a new experience. I was outside watering the garden, alone, when suddenly I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye. It was a stray, looked like a lab-cross, dragging its leash, silently headed in a bee-line towards me. Of course my heart picked up speed and I tried to orient myself away from it. This dog came to the edge of the garden (within 6-8 feet) and began to circle it somewhat, obviously interested in me. I have never had a stray calmly come up so closely before (running up snarling is a different story). I tried to signal disinterest as well as I could, and after a couple minutes the dog headed away towards the road. Now if I had been in the woods and something similar happened, I would have been absolutely terrified and most likely lying on the ground tucked into a ball.

Sometime I'll be sure to tell you my turkey-and ostrich- attack stories.