My first bad encounter with a dog happened at Grandma's house. A neighborhood dog, a big irish setter, had gotten loose and we encountered it in the woods behind the house. I guess he just wanted to play, but I was only 7 and my brother 5, and so when he came at us we freaked. He ran us down and knocked my brother down. I went to shoo him off and swung at him (feeble 7 year old swing). My brother is screaming and trying to escape, I am screaming and trying to get the dog off him, so the dog decides to bite me in the arm. He gets a mouthful of my coat, and clamped onto my arm underneath. I freaked some more, and started a tug of war match with him, which is apparently just what he wanted was someone to play with. My brother got off the ground and took off for the house, at which point the dog released me, chased him down, and tried to get him to "play". This went on with the two of us taking turns entertaining the dog all the way back to Grandma's porch. At this point, dad came out, saw that we were playing with the neighbor's dog, and yelled at us to quit making such a ruckus and leave the dog alone. At this point, survival instincts and a fury at dad's nonchalance apparently kicked in, and with a mighty tug I managed to rip my coat sleeve where the dog had hold of me enough to reach the nearest rock and start beating the dog's nose with it. Once he let go of me (my brother had managed to escape into the house), I threw it at him as hard as I could. It missed him by a mile, but he saw it go sailing by and decided it was time to play fetch, so as he ran to get the rock, I took off into the house myself. He hung around for a while as we watched him out the window, then finally took off. We headed for the beach instead of the woods, opposite the direction he was heading, making sure we each had a rock and a stick with us.

We never saw the dog again after that. I reckon he got snatched by someone, because even though he terrified us to no end, he was a beautiful setter. Either that or traffic got him. In any case, I had my first lesson in doggie behavior, and what kind of an a**hole my stepdad could be at times. Thank God he was only trying to play with us. Had he been vicious, at least one of us wouldn't have made it back to grandma's house. While I respect dogs and their abilities, I quit fearing them long ago.