Bullies

So every morning I walk Keilana to school, usually with a full double stroller and holding onto Ginger's leash. Then in the afternoon, the four of us (Dylan, Kylie, Ginger and I) walk back to the school to pick her up. Its around a third of a mile each direction and usually makes for a very pleasant walk.

Ginger is pretty good on a leash. She's still a puppy, so every now and then she pulls on the leash or darts after something and wraps around me, but for the most part she has already learned to just trot at a steady pace beside the stroller. There's a house we pass twice on each trip (so a total of four times a day) with a large fenced yard. The fence is a rather tall chain-link, with vines and boards covering it so that you can't see into the yard. Two American Bulldogs live in that yard, and they usually bark at Ginger. Initially she would bark at them and try to jump at the fence, but after a several choke pulls from me and some firm "no"s, she has learned to move to the opposite side of the stroller and keep her mouth shut most of the time.

So today we're walking by and they start with their usual big, deep barking. Ginger walked around behind me to look at them, as they were farther up the yard than usual today. Suddenly they both leapt at the gate, which came flying open and out they came. Two full-size, non neutered male bulldogs with their jaws all over my lean 20 pound puppy. I'm freaking out and kicking and hitting like crazy, though probably not as hard as I should've been. While every bulldog, pit and boxer I've personally known has been sweet as can be, they're called bully breeds for a reason and I had no idea what the temperament of these particular dogs was. So I'm trying to get them off the dog while hoping, with both my little kids sitting in the stroller right there, that they don't turn on me. I was on the main street in Lindsay, nearly the time school gets out and yet there was no one around. I kept thinking an owner would come out while I was beating these stupid dogs, who seemed pretty much unfazed.

Fortunately for me, some random teenager came flying over on his bike and hopped off and just started kicking as hard as he could. That got the smaller dog to back off. The larger one had latched on to Ginger's back end and would not let go, and I alternated between kicking the smaller one to keep him at bay and the larger one to get him to let go, while my teenaged rescuer focused his whole energy on kicking at hitting the larger one. Finally, we managed enough force to get the bigger on to let go and my new best friend yelled, "Grab her!" and I scooped Ginger up into my arms (no small feat at this point) and started running while trying to push my double stroller. My young friend stayed on top of the dogs long enough for me to put a reasonable distance between them and myself.

They didn't seem intent on doing any real damage (something I didn't realize until after I got out of the situation). They were biting her and chasing her around for several minutes, but certainly didn't break any bones and didn't draw any blood. She seems to be fine, other than a little shaken up. They didn't ever come after or jump or nip at me or the kids, and didn't try to chase me once I had the dog in my arms. I was furious. The owner either wasn't home or didn't hear me yelling and the dogs struggling (I'm afraid Dylan heard an earful of not-so-fake swearing--"dang!" and "sugar!" were not the words I was using to express myself, I admit). When I told Doug where it happened, he was pretty sure its the same house where Pepper (the lab we used to have) was attacked by a rott. Grrrrrrrrr.

On a pleasant and entirely unrelated note, I ended up putting the mattress from Dylan's bed in the crib (he's sleeping on the couch in his room) this weekend while I had an extra baby and decided to leave it there. Last night I put Kylie in the crib for the first time. She cried for about 40 minutes and then slept peacefully all night. I actually woke her up at 7 this morning so that I could feed her before I took Keilana to school. This morning I nursed her at nap time and she fell asleep while eating before I put her in the crib. She woke up when I laid her down, but only cried for 7 or 8 minutes and then slept for an hour and a half. After I picked up Keilana, I put her down in the crib wide awake and she cried for less than five minutes before she went to sleep. Sleep training success! She is the easy-peasiest baby.