Not So Much Of A Dog Fan

Today I had a similar experience to the one Carolyn posted about a little while ago, which you can read about here.  Jenna and I were out in front of our duplex when a couple of the neighbor kids came out to ride bikes.  To give a little bit of background, this isn't a neighborhood...there is a narrow, paved lane and about maybe 7 duplexes all along it.  There are no sidewalks *anywhere*, which is one of my big pet peeves (but that's a post for another day).  So basically the kids just ride their bikes up and down this lane, and it's not very long.  Anyway, one of the boys, probably about 7-8 years old sometimes has his dog with him...not on a leash, of course.  We've seen the dog a few times before, but it's never come up to us; it just stayed with the owners.  Not this time.  It came running at full speed right toward us.  It came toward me first, and I just stood there and let it do its thing, but then it ran over at Jenna.  Well, you can bet that I ran over to pick her up, wanting to avoid a situation like this one.  I sort of smiled a little bit at first, not knowing how to react...I wasn't really scared, but I was like, okay, enough, because then it started baring its teeth and jumping up on me (this is a small furry dog).  Well, boy owner then takes off on his bike down the lane!!  And I'm like, what the crap??  Because here I am with this dog keeping me from putting Jenna down, because it's not that much smaller than she is, and while thank goodness she wasn't scared, she would be if I put her on the ground.  Finally, the boy comes back within talking distance, and I say, "Can you please call her away?...because I can't put her down.." and he says, okay, and does try, but the dog just goes over to another neighbor's yard.  She was at least far enough away for me to make my escape, which I did, because at this point I was really annoyed! 

We were going to go in pretty soon before this happened, but I was resentful that the dog forced my hand.  It is so annoying to feel like you can't be in your own space because of a dumb animal!!  I am just not a pet person at all, and experiences like this reinforce my opinion.  Also, this dog didn't try to bite me or anything, but you better believe that if it had, I have no qualms about defending myself in whatever way I have to, *especially* if it's threatening my kids.  People really need to have their pets on leashes or controlled in some way when they are around other people, especially if they are prone to this type of behavior. 

I realize that a lot of people love pets...I'm just not one of them!  :)  But then I've had a lot of negative experiences, especially with dogs, that have resulted in a fear/active dislike of certain animals all up in my space.  If we see an animal from a bit of a distance, I'm fine and can be like, aw how cute!  The situation changes when they start jumping on me.  :0