I was out running with Kobe tonight when an enormous white dog came charging out of the darkness towards us with a ferocious bark. My initial reaction was to reach down and scoop Kobe up into my arms, an impulse that resulted in his claws imbedding themselves in my exposed calf as he struggled to stay on the ground. In Kobe’s mind, he is a fierce warrior dog that is capable of battling the largest and most fearsome opponents in the neighborhood; to the rest of the non-visually impaired world, he is the equivalent of a feisty, noisy Q-tip. I knew that if I didn’t get him off the ground, this other dog would carry him off in small pieces.
But I was wrong. Within moments of holding Kobe up in the air, the other dog dropped into a crouch, tucked its tail under its butt, and peed right on the concrete. And I looked at Kobe and he looked at me and was all like, “Oh yeah, that’s right, that was all me.”