Hillary and the pitbull

I got up around 4 a.m. today, wrote the morning news roundup, and then posted the newspaper’s Hillary Clinton ‘recommendation’ to Twitter and Facebook (where it would go viral.)

By 5:30 a.m., I was running for my life down Cedar Springs Road.

I came across a stray pitbull while taking the dogs to the walk-up Starbucks at the edge of Oak Lawn. We were several blocks from my apartment building when I noticed the 70-pound pitbull staring at us from behind an apartment building fence.

Ingrid, my labradoodle, barked at the pitbull and it darted toward a fence opening.

Cut to me sprinting at full-speed down Cedar Springs road with a labradoodle and a Chihuahua. It felt like a scene from Stranger Things (or at least a Dallas version of Scary Movie.)

Gunter and a very overheated Ingrid

The pitbull chased us for a few blocks before I lost it by darting across traffic.

We kept jogging until we reached Starbucks, where I called 311. The automated menu didn’t have an “animal control” option.

I then Googled “Dallas Animal Control” and found out that it wasn’t open until 11 a.m., which was useless.

So I dialed 911.

The operator told me to wait at Starbucks for the police. She said that the Dallas police wanted to “document every report of a dangerous dog” because of the “recent issues” surrounding loose dogs in the city. By “recent issues” she meant the 9,000 stray dogs roaming the city and the high-profile mauling death of a veteran.

I waited at the Starbucks for nearly an hour before the cops showed up. As I sat there waiting for the police, I thought about all of the other dog walkers and school children that pitbull could have attacked. Would I find out if it got someone else?

The cop took down my information and he seemed amused that I had waited so long for them. The officer also seemed confused why I was reporting the stray dog if I wasn’t bit. I was irritated by this because the only reason why I wasn’t attacked is because I outran the damn thing.

I continued on the dog walk after the cops left (although in a different direction). I think I might invest in a bat or mace for my next trip to that part of the neighborhood.