disclaimer: i'm allergic to dogs.

so i went running tonight-wait. let's back this up. last sunday i was talking with an old mission companion. she told me that she still carries rocks with her every time she goes running. i'm not going to lie...i laughed. that era of my life had completely left my memory. flash forward. tonight...i went running. as i walked out of my parking lot i noticed a few things 1) a father/20+ something-daughter duo walking their little (grandma'ish) dogs; 2) a pair of sisters (one toddler) walking on the opposite sidewalk; and 3) random dog running through the yards across the street. so it was a "stray" dog. it had a collar. it apparently has a home and an owner who loves it. the dog...being of the curious variety, ran past the little girls hesitating only to take a quick sniff (finding it unsatisfactory), and ran straight-shot to the dogs. long story short, the father yelled at the little girls and i both to take care of our dog while his daughter picked up both of their dogs. the combination of the mission, my animal allergy, and a few childhood experiences with my own father, have left me completely neutral to dogs. i don't particularly hate them, but at the same time, i have no desire to own one. for the time being, i decided that this tail-less creature with a choke-chain collar could join me on my jog if for no other reason to calm down the completely irate (grandma-ish) dog owners. he followed me for a few blocks and i thought i was going to lose him at the house with the over-sized white fur ball that likes to bark and stretch his chain every time i run by. i was wrong. he quickly reappeared. i then remembered the mission and the dogs that waited for us outside different homes and followed us around until we locked them out of our gated yard. then i remembered that i don’t have a gated yard. dang. that means he can’t follow me home. that meant i had to yell or do something to make him go away. i looked for rocks as my former companion had mentioned, but soon discovered that i have surprisingly clean streets in my neighborhood. there were no rocks to be found. that left the actually yelling at the dog. i don’t like dogs, but i don’t like yelling either. i’m what people would generally call non-confrontational-even if it is a dog. but more than non-confrontational, i’m not a dog person so the dog had to go. i opened my mouth to yell at the dog and to my shock (and secretly, pleasure) the word “sali” left my mouth. i was yelling at the dog in spanish. that made me laugh…quite a bit. i chuckled at that for most of the run home and didn’t even notice when my tail-less friend was really distracted by the over-sized white fur ball and i arrived at my house alone. looking back, the experience wasn’t too bad…perhaps i’ll have to keep running with the dogs if for no other reason than to keep up my spanish.