When I was very young I was terrified of dogs.  It was their quickness, their ability to outrun me. And their teeth. How did I know what they were thinking?  Would they hurt me if they had the chance? Maybe I thought that way because some part of me expected that kind of unpredictable cruelty, because part of me was unpredictably cruel. But this story isn’t about that.

I was walking home with two of my friends, and we came across a fence with a “beware of dog” sign. To get to the friends house we were going to we had to jump the fence, go about fifty feet, then jump another fence. I remember saying something about the sign — how we should go around and how it wouldn’t take long.  But my friends didn’t seem worried. They said it was ok, and there was no dog in sight. I didn’t want to say I was scared; that’s social suicide for a seven year old.  I said I had to go home, that I remembered I had to do something.  And I left, no arguments, no taunting.

So I started walking back to my house, or more accurately I just started walking. I had no idea how to get back to my house. The only thing I remember about this part is asking a man which direction the city where I lived was. In reality I was never more than fifteen minutes from my house. I finally got my bearings and found the street my house was on. But just as I got to my front steps, key in hand, a car pulled up honking. It was my friend (he had apparently survived the dog) and his mother. She was screaming at me to get in the car. I was home. I was safe. But this woman wanted to take me away from that, into the humiliation of the car and the friend who probably had no idea why his mom was so mad. To this day I wish I had gone inside. I wanted to explain to someone who I trusted why I was afraid. But I didn’t go inside, and my parents never found out about this.

I got into the car and accepted the verbal punishment. And I didn’t look at my friend because he had probably got the lecture about not letting a seven year old wander around by himself, and  was in more trouble than me.

That’s it. No cliffhanger or shocker. Just a story about a scared little boy who did eventually get over his fear of dogs.

Credit: submitted to StoryLog

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