Scene Explosion
It was a beautiful, October day on Friday the 13th, I hadn’t been able to leave my house because of a new dog we had received from my friend Penny. I was allowing time for the new family member to get used to the new surroundings. The previous owner had started puppy pad training and we thought we would continue with this. We had renamed the new dog Skipper, after my husband’s first dog as a child. My husband was a returning veteran from the Afghanistan Location and had decided to retire due to emotional issues of PTSD. The dog was his dog and he carried him under his arm where ever he went.
We stopped at a pet store and bought a ball that was the right size for his little mouth and thought we would go to the park close by and see how he did on retrieving. Skipper immediately jumped up to play with it. My husband John smiled and said, “I think this is the one.” We drove home and walked to the park with ball in hand, skipper on the leash. I noticed the leaves in the park looked absolutely glowing from the sun shining thru them. I was glad to be there, It delighted me that Johns interaction brought joy and happiness to him, I knew in my heart it was a sound investment in John’s emotional state.
My mind took me back home to my mother. She loved the fall, white birches were her favorite trees. Their leaves were always bright yellow. I remember that she would ask us to go out and find the most beautiful leaves of color and bring them home. She then took out wax paper, an iron and a dry dishcloth. She would organize my leaves on a piece of wax paper in a symmetrical pattern, put another sheet of wax paper on top and ironed over the dishcloth that was placed last on the top of her creation. The iron did its magic and when mom was done there was a beautiful picture of leaves she would then tape up in the window. My thoughts were brought back to our walk when we arrived at the park.
John took Skipper off the leash and threw the ball about 25 feet away, he happily chased it and brought it back to him. I said to John, “He’s a natural, a piece of cake training.”
Skipper was perched for the next throw when John launched the ball about 50 feet away and Skipper saw something in the grass and ran over to investigate. We tried to get his attention as we ran over to catch him. When all of a sudden, an older couple appeared with a full-grown German Sheppard, he had a black face, a stunning animal an obvious protector. We were looking for Skipper and noticed he was running towards this dog, when the German Shepard immediately having no leash to contain him, began to charge toward Skipper.
I told John, “Get the dog, the German Sheppard is running towards him.” My heart began to pound realizing that the calls by the older couple were not being headed by their dog. The dog looked like a bullet, with head down and ears laid back, we knew the intentions were to do harm, that was obvious.
John said, “Through me the ball launcher.” I ran back to get it and threw it hard to get to John, which he caught. Then I saw the most amazing thing take place. John ran right up to the German Shepard and jumped between him and Skipper. I thought the German Sheppard would jump on my husband because of his closeness to him. Instead, the dog put his front feet firmly on the ground and if wheels could talk this dog came to a squealing halt. With teeth bared the dog appeared to have only one thing on his mind, that was Skipper. I stood in amazement when the German Shepard jumped up to get Skipper from John. The older couple looked in astonishment at the German Sheppard and tried to call to him, but he was set on his plan of attack. Finally, the ball launcher was let go and on the last attack, John threw Skipper over his head to me right when the Sheppard jumped up., John grabbed the dogs head and twisted it to break its neck. The dog lay dead at John’s feet, the older couple cried and said this dog had come home from the war and they thought they could control him, but they knew now this was not the case. A police car drove up and the policeman ran over and said he had seen the whole thing, he asked if anyone was hurt and looked at the Shepard, he then looked at John and said that was a courageous thing you did, the dog he said had been a concern to him since he was patrolling in the neighborhood. He told us about all of the rabbit cages that had been opened by the shepherd the rabbits would jump out and he would kill them and bring them back to the front yard of the older couple's home. They had tried to contain him in the fenced yard, but he had dug a large hole under the fence to get out.
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