The Doberman

Okay.  We were assigned in our ward as ward missionaries.  Our first assignment was to visit a few families.  So in going to try to visit one of those families (note: these houses/multi-plexes were really annoying from the standpoint that there was a long row of them and the entrances were only on one side . . . not terribly convenient . . . but oh well) we were walking toward the row where we were supposed to find one of the people we were assigned to.  The sun was in our eyes, so it was terribly hard to see, but then Nini said--backing up in the meanwhile--that someone around there seems to have a mean looking dog.  I only assumed that she had seen the dog because she said that it looked mean.  Yeah, I shielded my eyes and looked in the direction of an adult doberman pinscher walking our way.  I about wet my pants, and at the same time I felt my heart stop.

I kept my eye on the menacing-looking dog while I pointed Scarlett's stroller in the opposite direction (back the way we came), and I told Nini to take her and go.  I couldn't move.  My feet were as if they had been stapled to the ground, but not with any of those crappy office staples, I mean the kind of staples that could hold a building together.  I was scared senseless, but the only thought that I had was that if I turned to run, the dog would chase us and it wouldn't end pretty for someone.  I was terrified, but my brain kept saying, "if you let that dog know you're afraid, he'll eat you like kibble on toast."  Instead I did the smartest thing I could think of and reached my hand out and started to call to it.

WHAT WAS I THINKING!!

Here's this killer dog advancing toward me and I'm moving toward it?  I must have been outside my head!!  The dog kept coming closer, and my legs felt like jelly.  OY!  That felt like an eternity waiting to see what would happen!  I've never seen my life flash so slowly before my eyes . . .

What happened next was so out of the expected and all the while was so surreal that I'm still not quite sure I believe that it happened.  The dog came up to me and sniffed my hand, licked my fingers, and I was thinking to myself, "GREAT!!  He's taste-testing me!" But then he rested his head against my leg and let me pet him.

That was the moment I knew . . . I didn't ever want to own a doberman pinscher of my own.  He was sweet, but I'd be so scared to death of him during the whole man-dog relationship.  I just couldn't live like that.

Anyhoo.  Fun story, I know.