…… over at my old place. I keep my two dogs there to raise a ruckus should anyone wander the property.
The next door neighbor calls to tell me there’s “something going on and I should get there quick.”
As he is European I thought he said to “peepuls” were in the fenced back yard and my dogs were defending themselves.
I’m twenty minutes away so I haul-ass over to find… two pitbulls are there, my dogs obviously frightened, bloodied, hiding until they hear me.
As I race through the house to get to the back yard, the big mama of the two dogs takes advantage of my dogs having emerged and attacks my sweet lab-mix that I call Doodles. She was screaming in agony. Snickers, my other dog is trying to nip the heals of the big pit.
I carry a .38 5-shot hammerless and pulled it as I also grabbed a metal fence stake. I shouted as I pointed, noticing my neighbor across the fence and behind where I’d be shooting. I also worried the shot may carry through and hit one of my dogs. The pit puppy is simply watching it all.
The shouting causes the pit to let go, and as I advance, she retreats. I’m talking a BIG f-in’ dog. I’m really pissed as I see all the blood on the pit’s mouth. I call my dogs, securing one in the toy hauler, the other in my house.
Back outside, having called the cops, the “puppy” probably 45lbs, would love nothing more than to play, and even the mama is wary but willing to somewhat follow.
A police officer pulls up and urges me NOT to coax the dogs out of the back yard, as “they’ve had other reports today about these dogs, and they may just hurt someone else.”
Also he can NOT guarantee that animal control can even be dispatched this late as the rule of law here is:
You must be bitten.
Not threatened, actual blood has to flow from a human before they will come.
He quietly told me that my mistake, (I’d told him I was licensed and was armed,)… was in that I had not shot both animals the second I arrived.
Had I shot in the air, I could have been cited for discharge of a firearm in the city… but had I killed the two dogs, I’d have been fine.
Ain’t that some sh!t!
A good fellow, he finally got an animal control guy on his way home to stop and pick up the dogs. The mother will most likely be put down, the pup however, may well be adopted out if it passes an aggression test.
So while shaking mad, and wanting revenge I did not fire. I was afraid for the neighbor behind the shot and my dogs… and it was deemed a mistake.
Texas law, especially Htown’s? Welcome to the wild west.
Snickers & Doodles are wounded, but should be ok.
