The Red Neck Trail

I have a current favorite walking path, it's the Mud Creek Trail. There are a lot of reasons that I like it but occasionally I decide to walk another path. I don't think it has a name so today I named it. From now on I will call it "The Red Neck Trail."


Lots of people here have dogs. Lots of people here have big dogs. Lots of people here take their dogs with them everywhere they go. They go in some stores, ride in the back of trucks, and go to the Farmer's Market. And of course people take their dogs for walks. On the Mud Creek Trail the dogs are leashed and people are careful, usually, to clean up after their dogs. And I don't think I've ever seen anyone walking with more than two dogs.


Today on the Red Neck Trail I first encountered a woman with her big dog, unleashed. My leashed little dog immediately goes into attack mode because in his head he is a big dog. We pulled over to the side and waited for the "danger" to pass and then continued on with our walk. The big dog didn't pay the least bit of attention to Mr. Bear, probably thought he was a rather foolish little dog!! And this woman wasn't carrying a poop bag. A little later a big German Shepherd came down the path, unleashed and looking alone. (Oh great!) He was followed by a Golden Lab, also unleashed but obviously they were together. At this point Mr. Bear is pretty fit to be tied which means that I pick him up. He is fighting like crazy to get out of my arms and into the fray - or maybe to start the fray - whatever. But now a third dog of equal size, maybe bigger, romps up to join the other two and then a fourth thankfully with a man walks onto the scene.


"Oh don't worry," the man calls to me. "My dogs are very social, wouldn't hurt a fly!" Maybe he hasn't noticed that I am trying to control a pretty hysterical "little dog." "Well, my dog isn't social, that's the problem." He just looks at us and walks past and thankfully his dogs follow without even looking back.


Mr. Bear calms down and goes back to sniffing the flora and fauna.


This man did not have a poop bag either. I wonder what size bag he would need?