It's Gonna Be A Glorious Day I Feel My Luck Could Change

We're only one day into the month and already June is way more awesome than May. You see, I was feeling very mopey and unlucky after the finger-vs-knife incident and then last night happened.

Last night my parents came over for dinner and we decided to walk the dogs. I was holding Stella's leash and my dad had Wolfgang's leash, when the puppies spotted another dog a few blocks ahead of us. When Stella encounters another dog, she gets a bit excited and wants to sniff and play. When Wolfgang encounters another dog, he gets territorial and protective of me. He's not aggressive at all but he does bark quite a bit. As soon as the other dog is within sniffing distance, Wolfgang turns into the perfect gentleman and wags his tail and is quite happy to play with the other dog, it's just the initial encounter that makes him unsure and shouty.

So. Last night the dogs spot the other dog and Wolfgang got all barky and loud so we stopped walking. My dad bent down to shush Wolfgang and Wolfgang got all squirmy and somehow the combination of a taut leash and a twisty puppy resulted in Wolfgang managing to ninja his way out of his harness. He didn't even hesitate; he took off running (across 4 lanes of traffic) after the other dog, who by this time was long gone. My brain was still processing what happened when my dad took off running (across 4 lanes of traffic) after him.

Here's the thing, I know what you're supposed to do in this situation. I know that running away from your dog prompts your dog to chase you, so if you run away from the danger the theory is that your dog will follow you to safety. But last night, in the heat of the moment, my thought process was pretty much this: "Puppy. In traffic. Dad. In traffic." And repeat.

So I stood there, frozen, until Wolfgang realized that I wasn't following him (his territorial / protective nature means that he doesn't want to be too far from me - no really, this is a dog that will whine at the bathroom door until I open it) and stopped. And then ran back towards me (across 4 lanes of traffic.) I managed to grab him as he ran past me and the whole thing was over in under a minute.

I feel so lucky. My dad, bless his heart, didn't even look before running into the street and Wolfgang still looks like this:

instead of, you know, flatter. I feel very lucky, indeed.