Today I learned a valuable lesson. Follow me into this little story if you wish to know what it was!
I woke up this morning and like every morning, dragged myself to the coffee maker for a cup of awake. I sat down with my coffee to look at the news (aka Facebook) and was delighted to see people posting information of something I had failed to realize. Today is the first day of spring!
Although this really doesn't do much to alter my day to day living, it filled me with such joy. I love spring. It's the time of new beginnings and everything feels full of promise.
It was in this frame of mind that I greeted the day.
After two weeks of upheaval, I got back to my morning routine today. I dropped my daughter off at school and headed with my dog to the off-leash park. It was a glorious spring morning. Blue skies, sunshine, crisp - what more could a girl and her dog ask for?
We started our walk and Riley got into a little scrap with a couple of cocker spaniels. It was over quickly and their owner and I commiserated with each other about our dogs and then moved on.
We continued to have a lovely walk. We met up with some of the "regulars", had a lovely chat, Riley socialized, and I felt so incredibly grateful to be alive.
On our way back to the van, we met up with some unfamiliar dogs. To avoid problems, I leashed Riley. We continued on without incident.
Then we met up with a big black dog. She was still a puppy. I had Riley on her leash and they were sniffing at each other, all was going very smoothly. Riley wanted to engage in play, so I let her off her leash. The puppy and her had a ball. They chased and tumbled and ran....until a pack of schnauzers approached. Now, I'm familiar with these dogs. Riley and them do NOT get along. So I went to leash her. I was too late. Her and one of them got into it and it was chaos. Someone finally got a hold of Riley and I went over to grab her and leash her - she got away a second time and more scrapping ensued. And THEN it got ugly. I was in the process of leashing her up when an unknown man, not the schnauzer's owner, came up to me and started to swear at me.
"What the fuck are you doing here with that dog??"
"It's an off-leash dog park, I'm here socializing her..."
And then he continued to drop f-bombs and curse me out about bringing her there. I was stunned. In all the months I have been taking Riley there, I have never encountered someone like that. Most of the people I have met there are understanding of the challenges we are dealing with by adopting a shelter dog, and are very supportive of our efforts to socialize her. I've been told time and again that this is the best place to bring her.
So now you have the story. And the lesson?
The lesson here for me was in not allowing this jerk to pollute me and ruin my day. I came home and showered away this guy's vile energy - imagining it as a scum on my skin that was being washed away and down the drain. And now I'm writing about it. This guy obviously didn't know much about dogs, and obviously had a lot of anger inside to need to unleash it on me like that (pardon the pun). I feel sorry for him having to walk through his day with that kind of negativity. But I'm not going to take that on. I'm not going to let this ruin what was... I mean what IS going to be a perfectly beautiful day.
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