tales from the leash...

I forgot to mention an odd occurrence last night. I was taking Sadie for a long walk to curb her alpha-dog behavior upon being reintroduced to Pickles (everything is complicated at our house) and I passed a couple of ladies with their small children. There were some interesting things to observe.

One lady was pushing a stroller, the other had one of those leash/harness things on her approximately 2 year old boy. The little boy had done something wrong and the stroller bitch--er, I mean lady, grabbed the boy's arm and gave him a very stern talking to for at least a couple of minutes, giving his tiny arm a hard shake now and then. I thought it was pretty excessive for a 2 year-old. His attention-span probably expired after the first 10 seconds of her blabbing in his face anyway.

First of all, the harness the kid had on had straps about 2 inches wide and would have held back a team of Siberian tigers. For cripe's sake, the kid is only as tall as two-drawer file cabinet; not to mention we were within an enclosed park and the lady holding the "leash" didn't even have a stroller to tend to and was walking normally. I felt bad for him as I passed--at least Sadie had a retractable leash that allowed her to explore a bit here and there. What is up with these people? I can maybe see it in a busy airport or if you are physically unable to keep up with a child, but????

After being angrily bitched out, the little boy started to cry and Sadie, the most independent "I don't need your opinion or anyone else's" dog in the world stopped dead in her tracks and turned around and stared at me. It's so weird how dogs react to children's cries. I said, "It's okay Sadie," and she turned right back around and trotted on with her hound nose to the ground. I've never seen her ask me a question like that before and it startled me. I also know that I probably lied to her.