Let's Get Something Straight, Dog Lover

Somebody call PETA and get the blood ready to throw at your monitor. Mom is getting ready to rant about some dog lovers.

I don't get "animal people". You know who I'm talking about. People who are kinder to their animals than they are to the human beings around them. I know an elderly woman who made her young Grandson go out at 1 A.M. in the Canadian winter to find her lost dogs. I also don't get people who put their newborn human infant in a crib across the house but let their animal sleep with them.

Now let me make one thing clear: I don't believe that anyone should ever mistreat any animal. I'm not a vegetarian, but it hurts my heart to see people abuse animals for sport or because they are wanna be rap stars. I buy cruelty free products, and would never let my children play roughly with or abuse an animal. My family raised Shelties when I was growing up and I adored them. Don't boil a kid in its mother's milk, and all that.

But here is what prompted this particular rant:

Most days I go out for a walk in my neighborhood with at least one or two of my children. The other week I stopped at the mailbox of one neighbor to take a breather, as it was at the top of a hill. The man across the street walked down his driveway to warn me not to get too close to their house. "They have 4 pit bulls and a couple of them have gotten out of the fence once or twice and harassed the neighbors."

I thanked him and then loudly announced that "I hope they never bother my children because my husband will come put a bullet in their brain in the middle of the night."

Just between you and me, we don't even own a gun. But dh would sure find one if a dog ever attacked his child and was not put down.

Today I was taking my walk and a dog that is usually behind a fence (this time a gate was open) ran out and started barking loudly and growling at me.

Now... even though I was raised around dogs I was somewhat afraid of them all my life. I was once bitten by a "friendly" dog and I don't trust any dog that I don't own. My pat response to someone who says "Oh, he won't bite" is "He won't bite YOU."

But I suppose things changed when I became a Momma Bear. I stopped dead in my tracks and kept my eyes on that dog and told him in my deepest most serious voice to
GO. HOME.

I was virtually daring him to come at my baby in her stroller so that I could plant a big leathery shoe smack into his jaw. Fortunately it didn't happen. But now I can understand how Mommies have fought off attackers and lifted cars off their precious young ones. Don't mess with Momma Bear.

And as for my neighbors, here's a word to the wise: keep your animals away from my children.

Now bring on the flames. I'm a big girl, I can handle it. :)