First Person:
Dr. Al Carlos Hernandez

Let me clarify that Mugzy Ortiz is an 8 pound Maltese who happens to be our granddog. I walk him when he visits (usually twice a week) along with Miss Sally who is a fourteen pound Bichon Frise. Miss Sally thinks she only weighs ten pounds; she insists on me carrying her to her bed every night and she will not walk on grass or ever get her paws dirty. The other day I accidently dropped her leash and continued walking. She stood there and waited for me on the sidewalk until I realized my mistake and went back to get her.

So this particular afternoon started predictably. We usually walk the dogs around 5:00 p.m. so I geared up with my hoodie, black puffy jacket and outlaw motorcycle club cap while armed with Oakland ‘police strength’ pepper spray and a pocket knife. The mace and the shank are a protective reaction to a pitbull-meat-beast-thing that got loose and ran up on Sally last year. The pit was happy, excited and non-threatening. The dog’s owner is still in therapy.

I have one of those long reel-in type leashes for Mugzy. He can run off and, with a push of a button, I can reel him in. I do this because he has to walk up ahead of us and act like a big shot, barking at random people because he can. He has that small guy complex. If he was human he would be a major leading man or a super agent. Sally is on a short pink embroidered leash which is wrapped around my left hand. She walks besides me so carefully that sometimes I forget she is there (unless, of course, I drop the leash).

We started down the street. Mugz makes a hard left and takes off like a greyhound towards his hometown Daly City. I am careful to reel him in while Sally walks calmly along side me, no doubt worrying about her hair. There is a trick to walking two dogs at once, but I don’t know what it is.

Out of the corner of my eye I see that across the street is a young mom pushing a stroller with two dogs. For my editor’s sake, the dogs were not pushing the stroller, the mother was. (ed. note: thanks) Mugz starts barking at them because genetically he is a punk.

The two dogs on leashes (I came to find out later) are pugs. That’s why their faces look like they were chasing parked cars. These thick, flat faced K9s with a serious underbite obviously took offense at Mugzy’s provocation. Sally looked across the street as the pugs started barking and had that ‘REALLY?!’ look on her face. Mugz was now prancing, head held high, thinking that he punked the ‘Thug Pugs’ and got away with it. Well he didn’t . . .

Suddenly one of the pugs breaks away and runs across the street toward Sally. The other one follows suit with the young mother (and child in stroller) in hot pursuit.

And everything went into slow motion.

One pug comes for Mugz. I pick Mugz up in the air with my right hand and I think I heard him say, “Thanks Pop,” as he continued barking.

The two pug thugs where chasing Sally around in a circle. Her leash and their leashes were wrapping around my legs. Sweet, innocent, and unsuspecting Miss Sally tried to duck down under a car for fear for her life, virtue, or even worse, messing up her hair.

The young mom was pulling the dogs by the leash off of Sally while her toddler in the stroller seemed to think he was watching an ipad video. I was yelling at the young mom to please subdue her dogs and she was doing the best that she could, until I somehow had the miraculous ability to speak Tagalog.

Then she knew just what to do. Just when they were about to bite, I picked up Sally with my left hand and held both of my precious pooches up in the air like The Lion King.

Lots of things go through your mind when small defenseless loved ones are in sudden and violent danger. My first response was to save, then protect, and then retaliate.

In the midst of the fray I realized that the young mother was not really responsible for the behavior of her ugly, yet very expensive dogs. They were being dogs and, she will deny this, but Sally sometimes can be flirtatious. Mugz on the other hand will freely admit that he is a trouble maker.

As parents, pet parents included, we have a visceral need to protect those we love. Often times things happen that are beyond our control. We need to always be vigilant, situationally aware and live in the moment when a little one is in our care.

Loving them every day is our reward.

In Memory of Rocky the Rock Star cat, Tooie the 14 Karat watch Dog, and Chico Montoya the gender confused greyhound.