Leash that Dog...or Leash that Idiot?

Here's the deal. A good dog only has its value in respect to its relationship that it has cultivated with its owner. Any single mistake executed by said good dog is easily enough to warrant it a bad dog in a stranger's eyes.

Now here's the second part. Not unlike many other states and straight pure logic, my home state of Maryland declares owners liable for their pets and above all, leashing their pets. The liability for any incurred dog injuries goes in the following process:

According to Kevin Willging of Niles, Barton & Wilmer, LLP, the claimant must prove that the owner exercised "ineffective control" of the animal in order to hold the owner liable for any injuries caused by the dog. This level of control is measured by what degree of notice that the owner has that his or her dog may attack. Key fact two: the pure and simple notion of a leash. Given that all dodogs are required to be leashed and not allowed to run at large, any violation of this law is in and of itself a means to be charged with negligence.

Here's the situation--one that you will find me in fault and one that I clearly admit to wrong-doing:

I have two dogs, Yoyo and Ding Ding. Yoyo is a small bichon-shitzu mix, as is his sister. Ding Ding is about the size of a small cat, a mini dog. A tiny little chicken nugget of a canine. Ding Ding is prone to charging and barking at people that she does not know, simply because she has little-man syndrome and likes to think she's a rottweiler. Yoyo is just about the dumbest, happiest dog who completely collapses onto his back if you touch him in the slightest bit. He loves to greet people, she loves to try to eat people. Our dogs have been disciplined to know that in our human-canine relationship, they are never to leave our sight but may stray as far as they would like...they always come back. When it comes to strangers sharing our path, Ding is usually picked up and held onto until the party leaves so that she may not be of any concern--Yoyo is good enough a dog to wag his tail and go off.

Today Yoyo cried from morning until night because he wanted to desperately go out for a walk. So after kickboxing tonight, I came home at 9:30 and my mother and I walked the two of them--sans leash. Yoyo had sprinted away, Ding was within five feet reach, and lo and behold we have a nice middle-aged Indian couple having their romantic pre-slumber, summertime walk. Alright. I go to fetch my little bite-size monster but before I make it to her, she starts making her rounds and barking. Let's consider this: A dog the size of your foot is most likely going to render bouts of fear if it is charging at you and growling, but you're not going to get anymore than a nip from that tiny little mouth.

So of course, Ding is circling the couple and barking and vacillating back and forth, and to nobody's surprise, their first instinct is to completely have a breakdown. This woman is shrieking and the man is crying out and that only excites a dog more.

Lesson number one for Idiots: When there is a dog threatening you, just stand the fuck (excuse my French) still and try not to excite it. I mean honestly, do you not learn anything from greyhound races, the game of tag, the general reciprocal relationship of hunt and chase? They see something go and they want it even more.

Finally I get a hold of my monster and they're walking away, completely upset, as they have every right to be. We call for Yoyo to come back, and on his way on bounding towards home, he gets excited by newcomers and flops on over to them. In the dark, especially after a scare not quite half a minute ago, this second dog surely must look like a terrifying prospect. So the lady takes off halfway up the side of the hill shrieking again, and my poor dog thinks they are playing. The man starts hissing and shooing away this confused animal who only wants to say hello because it is in his nature to have such a happy disposition.

When we finally get a hold of him as well, the man spits out vehemenously, "DON'T YOU HAVE A LEASH FOR THEM? YOU SHOULD LEASH THEM. NEXT TIME I'M GOING TO BRING A STICK."

Okay. Fine. We should leash them. I know the law. I know we're breaking it. I also know I'll break your entire face if you EVER touch my dogs. So my mother, not quite hearing everything, just says thank you and tries to dismiss it as we depart from one another.

And then I hear, "Idiots." I turn around and say, "Alright, that was unnecessary." Man explodes, screams, "YES IT IS NECESSARY." I start yelling at him and my mother is trying to pull us away. The last thing I hear, is a split second delay of a loss of words, and the man splurting out, "SHUT UP!"

Now, it is one thing to hear "shut up" in an argument, another to hear it with an Indian accent, and yet another to hear it as a final word. It's one of those moments where you are seized with absolute confusion. Do I laugh at him? Should I sneer at his 5 year old come back or say something intelligent to spite his lack of efficient argument?

To be the bigger person as I had been doing for the entire time, I merely turned and walked away with my mother chirping in my ear about always instigating fights.

But here's the final deal. For every wrongdoing that I may committed with the non-leashing of my canines, that man played even more of a ridiculous role in trying to snub me behind my back. If you feel that inadequate as a grown man that you must verbally attack somebody over an incident that has already occured, much less to say that somebody having not said a single nasty thing to you at all, then you are clearly the idiot on the loose. I have fully admitted in this rant that I was wrong from the beginning and surely that should not warrant such juvenile behavior. But there you go; people are sure to try their hand at anything to look better and smarter than you. But if your best shot is a flimsy "shut up" screeched at the top of the lungs as a final coup de grace, your argument has completely flopped, any consideration of mine towards you as a reasonable grown man, and your ultimate swipe at me has done nothing but made me think that YOU'RE the idiot ...and my dogs should have just simply taken you out.