a tale of two doggies

i was babysitting my brothers' dog (border collie) and when i took him home today i decided to walk there to give him some exercise before he spent a couple of hours in the house until my brothers and parents got home.

my parents live in a house that's on the land of a farm/apple orchard. so i decided to take the scenic route and go through the orchard as the other way is on the highway so it's loud and boring.

after getting all the way through the orchard and just reaching one of the smaller buildings where they keep wood i see the farm owner (who i swear is like 182 years old but still works the farm) , his dumb dog sam (a black lab) and a farm worker.

sam as always is not tied up or on a leash which is dangerous because he lunges and bites. you may be thinking "but it's a farm, he should run free!". well here's the thing ...... it's a u-pick orchard, u-cut tree farm and also the produce and pumpkins in the falls and tons of other stuff that cause multiple people to be strolling all over. i would think it'd be bad for business to have a feisty dog roaming the farm while people were there trying to buy things.

anyhow, sam and jack do not get along. mostly jack hates sam because same comes and teases, taunts, barks and growls at him while he's tied up outside. the minute i saw sam was not tied up i knew there'd be trouble.

the dogs started lunging at each other, jack pulling so hard on the leash my shoulder and wrist felt pulled out of joint. after about a minute of constant lunging all vincent (the farm owner) has to offer to the situation is "eventually he'll tire himself out"! at this point i already felt like i'd been ridden hard and put away wet. every time jack lunges my arm and wrist pull and eventually the strain starts pulling at my ribs.

the farm worker is laughing .... yes i said laughing ..... and vincent just walks away, only telling sam to come once which sam did not do. i'm pulling as hard as i can trying to keep them apart for like 5 minutes, feeling like the ball on the end on one of those paddle ball toys cause every time he lunges i get jerked forward again.

i reach up and yank my hat off cause i feel overheated and i start feeling short of breath .... perhaps the combination of the cold air, recovering from the flu and the intense exertion of pulling on jack and being pulled forward for so long. sure it's probably just me being dramatic but for a mintue there i thought between the pain, shortness of breath and overheated feeling i was going to pass out. probably also fear of jack getting hurt and me getting bitten by sam. that dog was scary to look into the face of with his teeth bared and growling like that.

by the time i finally got jack past where sam was i collasped on the side of the farm road just trying to breath, every muscle in my body having that muscle fatigue shakiness. my parents house in view now but it felt so far away. then and only then did i start to cry and just counldn't stop. eventually i caught my breath enough to make it to my parent's house and get a drink but my throat and mouth were so dry and i still couldn't breath. my face was bright red for almost an hour after it happened!

after i got home i had a bath, some pain reliever and a tea and tried to calm down. i'm still pretty shaken up and i feel like i've been run over by a truck or something! :(