I took our 6 year old lab, Liberty, to my son’s flag football game. It was a beautiful fall day. Cool. Sun shining. Blue, blue sky. I was curious how Liberty would behave as she’s never been to anything like that before. I worried she might bark at everyone but she didn’t. She seemed to enjoy it. Unfortunately, I had a bad tendency to forget about her during exciting plays. She would get excited and run down the sidelines with the boys on the field. If the coach ran out on the field, she would too. She was on one of those extendable leashes and I’d have to pull her back. But she was very obedient. Until the end of the game.
Someone arrived with their puppy (not much smaller than Liberty). They were in the parking lot behind me. Lib saw them, started barking. I didn’t know what she was barking about. The game had my attention. The score was close. We needed a touchdown.
But Liberty had other ideas. She strained to go behind me, barrelling between me and the chair next to me. With her tugging, utilizing all 77 pounds of her, my chair started to fall over backwards. She twisted my arm up and back behind me with the leash and I accidentally let go. Or maybe it was on purpose. Not sure. It happened so fast. And I was about to fall. I’m against that. Anyway, so off she went after this puppy. Usually Lib submits to any other dog. Even puppies. But not this one. They stood nose to nose. Gary and I raced across the parking lot to get her. Everything was fine. Whew! It was fun…before the disaster.