Morning Neighborhood Drama (Thanks, Michael Vick)

This morning started off pretty usual. I got up, got dressed, ran my 20 minutes (and walked 10) on the treadmill, then I went out on the front porch to sit on the swing and cool off for a few minutes. As I opened the door there was a stray dog on our front porch. His tail was wagging, so I figured he was okay. Actually I had seen this dog a couple other times in the last two days, just hanging around. He wasn't wearing a collar, and I didn't know who he belonged to. But, as I said, his tail was wagging. So I went on out to sit on the swing. Now this was a big dog (later I learned it was part pit bull and part chow). As I walked over to the swing I noticed the kid from next door was out with his dalmation, who is a house dog, but they bring him out to walk him and let him "use the yard". I was sort of talking to this boy, who is about 12 maybe, and was asking him if he knew anything about this other dog who was on my porch. He didn't, and then the stray dog left my porch and ran over to him and his dog. He started playing with the dalmation, kind of wrestling at first. Then it became something more. The boy was trying to shoo him away from his dog, which seemed to aggravate the situation. AND THEN the stray starts growling loudly and starts actually attacking this dalmation. I couldn't believe it when I saw him take the dalmation's head in his mouth - his whole head! I was just frozen watching this play out. And the boy was trying his best to get them apart the whole time. So then the mom comes out yelling and trying to get them apart, but no luck. THEN the dad comes out - with a 45. So he starts shooting. He shot the back of the stray, and it finally let go of the dalmation. So the mom, the kid, and the dad get the dalmation in the house, and the stray runs off. I went in to get Bennie, and we both came out on the porch, but then here comes the stray back to our porch. So now I'm kind of scared of this dog. So Bennie called the animal control people, who btw waited for a couple of hours before actually coming out. Then I went over to tell our neighbor that we had called and to see if they were okay. He told me that his wife and son had left to take the dog to the animal hospital, and his arm had two long scratches on it from the dog. So, to make a pretty long story somewhat shorter, I went on in to take a shower. When I came out the neighbor had shot the dog, who wouldn't die. So he went and traded the 45 for a 22 rifle and shot it again a few times, this time killing it.

So Bennie and I had to leave for Winston, but when we got back our neighbor was out with the dalmation (who had a big gash in his neck but was otherwise okay) walking him down the road, and he came into our driveway and told us the rest of the story. The animal control guy finally got there, but someone from the newspaper got there first, and she was asking demanding questions like why it took so long for the animal control people to respond. Anyway, the guy said that for the last month they have had a lot of instances with these kinds of dogs being set loose, fallout from the MV fiasco. Apparently this dog had been trained to fight, and the AC guy actually praised our neighbor for killing it.