Sumbody's Scare

To tell the story "Sumbody's Scare" properly, I have to start from the beginning.

Sumbody is a greyhound and they tried to teach him to race, but he wouldn't chase the bunny.

Now you may ask, "if he's a hunting breed, why would he not chase the bunny?"

Well, it turned out that he has a low "startle threshold" (that's what Helena calls it), which means he scares easily. For example, if you set off firecrackers, even from a few blocks away, he runs away to look for "a safe place" to hide, which is usually under Helena's desk. So, he gets easily scared by sharp noises.

When they race the dogs they put them in a box and when the bell rings they raise a gate, but when the gate goes up it slams. This slam would scare Sumbody enough for him to try to get out the back side of the box rather than chase the bunny. The race was usually half over before he would leave the box. They tried to teach him not to be scared, but it never worked. So they put him up for adoption and that's how we came to have SumbodywholovesU, or just Sumbody.

Well, Sunday was the Puerto Rican Day celebration and often you hear fire crackers on this day. I didn't know it was PRD and had not heard any fireworks all day.

Well, Helena and I took the dogs for a walk. We had planned to take the longer of our usual paths, this one is a bit over 1 1/2 miles. We were almost 3/4 of a mile from the house when we heard what at first we thought were fire crackers. On hearing this sharp noise Sumbody pulled his leash out of my hand and ran for all he was worth, it had to be nearly 40 miles/hour, because he was going faster than the cars passing by us.

But then there were more noises. They weren't firecrackers, but gun shots (Helena says there is a law forbidding shooting a gun inside the city limits even if it is for a celebration such as PRD--Helena's friend, Daisy, who is from Puerto Rico, says she doesn't personally know any one who does this, but she has heard of others who do and this makes her mad, because this makes people from her background look bad).So, we started to run as fast as we could and were yelling for Sumbody to come back.

At first we were both scared to death something would happen to Sumbody, even though he was staying to the sidewalks, except to cross the streets. Well, Sumbody got almost a quarter mile down the road towards home and he stopped, turned around and looked at us as if to say, " are you coming?" So we started yelling again for him to come to us.

Instead, he started running towards home again. Well, it was at this point, I think, Helena started to get mad. We continued to run as hard as we could and he got to the corner of Laurel and Wade and he stopped again. Again, he looked back as if to say, "are you coming?" Well, we called him again to come to us, but instead he continued to run towards home. About this time I could feel Helena getting madder. All the while I was just plain scared.

We turned the corner to Wade and Pacific just in time for him to stop in front of the neighbor's house and looking back to see if we were coming. It was then that we lost sight of Sumbody.

When we got in front of the house the little boy who just moved in across the street asked, "are you looking for your big dog?" We said yes. The little boy said, "I went into your yard and he's not there." I was almost in tears when I heard this, because the only place he could have gone, if he didn't go into our yard, was down to North Avenue and North Avenue is a very busy street even at night, never mind in the middle of the day!

Helena said, "let's go get the car and see if we can find anyone who has seen him. Along the way you keep an eye out for him."

We turned the corner to jog into the house to get the keys and there was Sumbody waiting for us on the back doorstep!

I was so happy he was safe! Helena was what grandmere calls "mad as a wet hen". Helena called it being in "high dudgeon" (?spelling); whatever that is.

She got over to the doorstep and in a "Mister, I mean business"-voice she started yelling, "don't you ever ever, ever, ever do that again!"

Helena opened the door to the house and just then there were more gun shots and Sumbody took off up the stairs and hid under Helena's desk.

Sumbody didn't come back out from under the desk for a much longer time than he usually does. I think he knew he had been bad and was laying low.

Helena said she was scared to death for him right until he had the nerve to look back as if to ask, "are you coming?"

He's okay, now, but Helena says she thinks a certain male dog is going to get another trip through doggie obedience classes this fall.

At first I was afraid to share this story, because I thought people would think I was a bad doggie mama, but Helena, grandmere, and my friends all say it wasn't my fault. They said for Sumbody it was "fight or flight" and he was just plain scared and felt he needed to get out of there fast!

I still felt guilty, because what if I had been holding on tighter?

Helena says if I had been holding on tighter, at best, it would have only slowed him down, and more likely I would have gotten hurt or dragged down the street a ways, because Sumbody and I both weigh 80 pounds, but he's stronger than I am.

The good thing to come from this is we now know Sumbody knows his way home and we have created a home for him where he feels safe.



This is how I picture it must have been for Sumbody before we adopted him.

I would give proper credit to the artist of this drawing, but I only have her signature at the bottom "yvonne"