Doggie Karma

Karma (Sanskrit: from the root kri, "to do", meaning deed) or Kamma (Pali: meaning action, effect, destiny). In Hinduism and, later, Buddhism, it is the sum of a person's actions, regarded as determining that person's future states of existence.

Yesterday afternoon I was in the Cub Foods parking lot, loading groceries into my car, when my cell phone rang. It was Demigoddess the Younger, and she was most upset.

“There’s a dog in our yard and it got in a fight with Emmylou and she’s bleeding!”

“Bring her inside,” I said.

“We CAN’T, the dog is on the deck and he keeps trying to come inside! Lou is in the bushes and she’s whining! What should we do?”

“I don’t know. Don’t do anything. I’ll be home in a minute.”

Adrenaline overload makes following the rules of the road a real challenge. I had visions of a crazed, rabid cur mutilating my dog and then trying to eat my children. (WHY do there have to be so damn many people out driving around on Sunday afternoons??)

When I arrived home a few minutes later, I left the groceries in the car and ran to the backyard. My dog was still on her tie-out, which was tangled in the bushes, so she couldn’t go anywhere. She was bleeding from one small scrape on her shoulder, but didn’t seem to be damaged too badly.

The attacker was still on our deck. He was the thickest, meatiest example of a dog I have ever seen in my life. Set low and nothing but muscle, with cropped ears and yellowish eyes, I’m quite sure he was at least part pit bull. He looked like he had been hacked from a slab of granite, with a head like a cinder block. He sat there and looked at me, grinning a mouthful of scary-ass teeth and wagging his tail. The Demigoddesses were sitting on either side of him.

“He’s actually really nice!” Demi the Younger chirped.

The dog continued wagging as I checked his tag, wrote down the number listed on it, tied him up and then called the owners. A few minutes later an enormous guy in a red Mustang pulled up. I told him that his dog and mine had gotten into a little bit of a scrap, and confirmed that beefy dog had had all of his shots, which he had, because, apparently, beefy dog escapes a LOT. Then the guy leaned over the dog, put his arms under the its forelegs and hoisted the animal into the air from behind. He toted him to the car like that, threw him in, and drove away.

I guess I could have given the guy an earful. I probably should have. But as I was writing down the man’s name and phone number, just in case I should need it later, I couldn’t help but remember our little poodle incident from last month.

I guess it just goes to show that, just when you think you’re a real badass, there’s always a bigger dog not far down the road who’ll be happy to show you otherwise.

Poodle lady never did call me, and I guess maybe that’s why I couldn’t bring myself to give Mustang guy a hard time.

Karma, you know.