Dog trouble on the trail

As I patiently wait for the snow to leave the high country trails I enjoy walking the Whitefish Trail three to five times a week. This past weekend I had a very scary experience involving two German shepherds.

It all happened very quickly as I came around a bend in the trail and looked up to see the two dogs with a young girl holding one on a rope about 25 feet away. The dogs saw me at the same time. One let out a furious growl, lowered its head and ran straight at me with the second dog right beside it.

I only had a few seconds to tell myself to stay calm and stand as it ran up to me, grabbed my thigh in its mouth and continued running past me. They turned, ran back to the girl, then whirled and did the same exact thing a second time. At that point I yelled at the two adults who were back up the trail to “call their dogs off.”

The dad hurried down, picked up the dog’s rope and walked right past me. I was stunned. He never stopped to ask me if I was OK or never bothered to apologize. There is probably someone who would say I was moving fast, which I was, and the dogs were protecting their owner. What if I had been a young person on a mountain bike? What if I had my grandchildren with me? The outcome could have been very different.

About two weeks ago the opposite happened — a big furry Malamute type dog on a retractable leash, with its owner on his mountain bike, ran up to me, jumped up and planted a slobbery kiss on my cheek. Yuck!

The rule is that dogs need to be “under control” and these were not. Dog owners need to obey the rules.

 — K.C. Voermans