A friend of mine from work had us over to play music one afternoon.  He had a couple of young, big, strong, and, to me, scary lookin’ dogs. The kind of dogs people used to say “there’s only a problem if they sense your fear.”  Yeh, they sense my fear! I’m scared shitless, for chrissake. The dog knows this and therefore it’s going to eat me. So is this supposed to be able to stop being afraid? I know the dog isn’t going to buy any kind of “act” I put on to show I’m unafraid.  No, the animal surely can sense the fear seeping out of all my pores.

I said nothing.

So the man says to me that the dogs really wouldn’t bother anybody unless “like, to defend me.” Makes sense, but I wasn’t sure exactly where the dogs would draw that line.  He tells me the younger dog’s a rottweiler / pit bull mix, kind of like a “pit bull on steroids.” I decided it would be advisable not to get into any arguments with the host.

I ‘m sitting on a couch a starting to play the flute. The rottweiler-pit bull is coming over toward me. He was young but he was plenty big.

As I played he flute he came over right close to me and started to HOWL. I wan’t sure how he’d react if I stopped playing. Maybe that would get him really pissed off. I played and he howled. It was quite a concert.

But I survived.

Now I have a puppy. She’s a soft black and white furry thing. Very lovable.  But when I play my sax or flute, she goes completely bongos. 

I guess dogs are just very frank about what they think of my talents.