Yesterday morning, I woke up extra early (5:30) to take Duke for his morning walk/bathroom stop. What I didn’t realize was that the lead was broken. Halfway down the stairs, Duke broke free from the lead and ran down the stairs, with me chasing after him. He did his business, but then starting running away from me. I sprinted after him as he ran up some other stairs to the road, and managed to catch him before he did anything potentially harmful to his health. But because the lead was broken, I had to grab him and try to coax him into moving back down the stairs. I honestly felt like Steve Irwin the crocodile hunter, as I tried to move this huge beast with my bare hands. Thankfully, he is a very good dog, and he cooperated. Had he wanted to, he could have taken off again, and I would have had no chance of stopping him.
Later that evening, I came home after a nightmare day (I discovered that I had a flat tire on the way home, amongst other things). The first thing I did was take big Duke for another walk. Now because we live in an area with few places for a dog to “make”, I have been taking Duke to a construction site near our apartment. It was pitch black, and Duke lead me to the back of one of the cottages being built. As he started sniffing the dirt, I barely made out the visage of three PLO Arabs sitting at the back of the neighboring cottage. (They were the workers building the cottages, who have a habit of not returning to their homes in the disputed territories. We have called the border police in the past to take them back, but they keep returning).
Under normal circumstances, I would have been somewhat afraid of being in the dark, on a construction site, staring at three PLO Arabs. But given that I was accompanied by a huge dog like Duke, I felt safe. I don’t know if the PLO Arabs did though.
Update: My wife just phoned me to say that she suspects that Duke just did his thing all over the sidewalk in which someone may fall and cause sidewalk accident injuries. But I was with him this morning, and I saw nothing. It is only circumstantial evidence, I tell you!
Dogs have been getting some bad publicity here in Israel after an Amstaff recently killed a four-year-old girl. What a family is doing with a vicious dog like an Amstaff is anybody’s guess, but that is a discussion for another day.
I want to relate my experiences with my in-law’s German Shepherd, which we are currently looking after for six weeks while my mother-in-law is in the US. His name is Duke and he is huge. If he stood on his hind legs, he would almost be my height (I am 6″2). He weighs a ton (figuratively speaking), but is thankfully a great dog. He is like a gentle giant.
He is been staying with us since Friday, but I have already had some eventful experiences with Duke.
