So I’m planting some marigolds when the cell phone rings. It’s my boss. I’m chatting with him about all the hard work I’ve been doing and I decide to take the dog with me to the end of the driveway and check the mail. En route, my boyfriend beeps in and I accidentally hang up on my boss and answer my boyfriend’s call.
I agree to bring a change of clothes when I pick my boyfriend up in a few minutes and I’m simultaneously getting the mail out of the box and calling my boss back.
“I have yet to successfully swap calls on this phone,” I tell him, as my dog approaches a pedestrian to sniff him.
Pedestrian recoils, looks horrified and says, “I’m not a fan of dogs.”
“Sorry about that,” I say, and walk with mail, cell phone and dog back up the driveway.
She didn’t even jump on him. I don’t think. I feel bad that my dog invaded his space, and I guess he had no way to walk around us. But it’s almost gratifying that someone is intimidated by my goofy dog, who ran shrieking from two great danes, a poodle and a big black dog at the lake yesterday. The black dog bit a woman a few minutes earlier, so I guess Isis was right to be afraid, but sheesh. Is there a way to train your dog to know that she is to be feared without ever doing anything fierce?
Interesting, I just looked up “fearsome,” which means both “Causing or capable of causing fear” and “Fearful; timid.” This would seem to be a contradiction, except that Isis is both. Question is, how can I use it if you won’t know which one I mean?
Kari Neumeyer 