Curly shows a mean side

M onday night we took our dog, Curly, for his short nightly walk. It has become a ritual for him and usually around 7 p.m. he gets antsy about his walk. On Monday, he went halfway into the laundry room where we keep his leash and sat down, looking up at the leash. We knew it was time for the walk.

For those who don’t know, Curly is a Border Collie, Queensland mix. He has a loud bark, but is really a gentle dog, or at least we thought.

We usually have him walk around for a few minutes and he sniffs around and does the thing dogs do about four or five times.

On Monday, as we were still in our yard, our neighbors from across the street and two doors down came out with their three dogs. This was the first time we have seen other dogs since we began the nightly walks, so I was a little concerned and curious how Curly would react. Now, Curly is named after one of the Three Stooges and on Monday, he acted true to his name as if he was hearing the Pop Goes the Weasel song and it would set him off.

As soon as he noticed the other dogs, he became very upset and grew more upset with every second. We began trying to calm him down and telling him he was OK. His bark grew louder and angrier. Then, he tried to bolt, but I had his leash and for the moment, he wasn’t going anywhere.

Then, he began to jump and squirm and in a second, he managed to pull out of his leash.

He immediately ran toward our neighbors and their biggest dog, maybe a little larger than Curly who weighs in the neighborhood of 100 pounds. I could see my neighbor was also waiting to see how the two dogs, both males, would react. It didn’t take long.

To my surprise, Curly began a fight and the two large dogs went at it. Curly was being aggressive and we had no collar to grab to pull him back. My neighbor kept hold of his dog who was defending himself.

I managed to get Curly to back off, but only for a second and he went right back at it. The two were bitting at each other’s ears and barking loudly in not-friendly tones.

It was then I felt I needed to do something, so I dove on Curly, basically tackling him to the ground. It took a few seconds to get him down, but he did not want to stay there. He was mad and wanted some more of the neighbor’s dog. It was all I could do to hold him down and try to calm him down.

After what seemed like an eternity, I noticed my neighbor was still standing there with his dog in sight of my dog. I know Curly was not going to calm down with the dog there. I asked the neighbor it he could take his dog inside, which he did immediately.

With the dog now gone, Curly began to calm down and my daughter was able to replace his collar, but this time a little tighter than it was before. I slowly let Curly up, but held on to the leash tightly.

With the dog now gone, Curly calmed down and we walked back to the house and inside with no more commotion.

I know I was breathing about as hard as I have breathed in some time. My heart was racing and I was sweating and exhausted. Wrestling a 100-pound dog is not easy. I could tell Curly was exhausted as well. His tongue hung down about four inches and he was panting as hard as I was.

We got him and us back into the house where it took me and Curly several minutes to calm down and catch our breath.

It probably all didn’t last more than 10 minutes, but I don’t want to repeat those minutes. We are going to get a harness which will give us more control over Curly if we need, but more importantly we will probably only take him for a walk when we have the neighborhood to ourselves.

Now, if I only had some Limburger cheese, like Curly the Stooge, maybe that would have calmed him down.