Gunther: G-Man of Power

1/20/21

I often take Gunther around the corner to Mrs. Johnson’s yard to relieve himself.  He likes her yard because she feeds birds and squirrels.  Also a cat from across her street poops under one of her bushes.  Yes, I always pick up after Gunther. But yesterday he hurried past Mrs. Johnson’s in order to confront, as usual, the pair of clownish dogs that live midway up the block.  Behind the mustard-colored house.  Behind a fence. One dog stands and howls, almost sings. The other fills in with rhythmic barking, a duet. We’ve come to expect a show.

Gunther taunts the dogs when they are out, barking and running at them.   Then, as we walk ahead, the dogs usually race ahead, around to bark at us from the other side of the mustard-colored house. 

Sometimes we confront the dogs from the alley.  One dog is tan, the other white with black spots.

A couple days ago, we tricked them when they ran up to their fence to bark at us.  Instead of going ahead to the other side of their house, we turned back so the dogs would wait for us in vain.  I thought we were pretty funny.  We fooled them.

The next day when we tried the same stratagem, the dogs split up.  One dog raced ahead.  The other stayed to bark at us, when we turned back.

Yesterday, I was ready for more fun at the dogs’ expense.

Gunther barked and raced at the two big howling dogs.  He charged, feinted, charged again, tearing up the lawn as he went.    He snarled. He growled. He pawed at the ground.

This drove them wild.  I smiled with amusement.  I envisioned many pleasant days ahead.

Then one dog–the white and black–quickly jammed his body beneath and through the chain link fence, racing at Gunther, just three feet away.

Before I could react, the bigger dog had Gunther on his back yelping in pain.  He had rolled him over, like he would kill him.

I grabbed Gunther up and the menacing dog ran away a short distance.   

Gunther cried and yelped in my arms like he was hurt.  I hurried him away and up the sidewalk, but he was in distress, shrieking and yelping.  After walking him 50 feet or so, I looked for blood, but finding none, I put him down.  He trotted up the sidewalk quietly, but began yelping again when I tried carrying him.  Again I put him down and he trotted around the corner and pooped.  When we went past the alley I saw the white and black dog 50 yards away, near his house.

Billings has a non-emergent police number, and I have it on speed dial. This is a holdover from when we took care of homeless people in a local program called “My Backyard.” If we needed an officer, we didn’t want to call 911, necessarily.

So I reported the loose dog in the alley to animal control.  “He lives in a mustard-colored house on Alderson,” I told the dispatcher, who said he’d send an officer.  

I hurried back to the alley and through a passage between two garages to the street, to the mustard-colored house to check its address.  I saw activity there.

In the dog’s yard I saw my neighbor Sharon, who lives next door to the two dogs, putting the loose dog back into the yard.  A mother and her child who live on this side of the mustard house cheered and threw a stick.  

I hailed Sharon to show her where the dog got loose.  She said the owner of the two dogs was not home.  She put a cement block where the dog had busted under the fence.  The child’s mother wedged a branch.  The two dogs knew Sharon and acted friendly around her.

Back home I rubbed and pressed all over G-dog’s body; he didn’t show any sign of tenderness or soreness.  His gait was normal.  His appetite was good. I decided he had been scared.

I called back the animal control officer, confessed how Gunther teased the dogs, how the loose dog was back in his yard, and withdrew my complaint.

Today we couldn’t entice Gunther to walk past the mustard-colored house.