Coming home from the grocery store the other night, I noticed a lady walking ahead of me with three small dogs. Each dog was pulling its leash to its maximum length, and they were all pulling in different directions, taking up the entire width of the sidewalk. Two people walking in the oncoming direction had to stop and wait for the lady and her dogs to walk past them. The lady made no attempt to pull her dogs back in order to let them pass. She seemed oblivious to the fact that her pack was blocking all foot traffic.
At one point, the lady pulled out her phone and started looking at it. I guess it didn’t make a big difference. She hadn’t been paying attention in the first place; now, she was completely oblivious to her surroundings.
A man with a larger dog approached from the other direction. I took a deep breath, dreading what was about to happen.
The small dogs started yapping loudly as they lunged at the larger dog, who barked back ferociously. Luckily, the man was exercising more vigilance than the clueless lady. At the first hint or trouble, he pulled his dog away from the cluster of smaller dogs. The dog was up on its hind legs, fighting against the control of the leash. The lady yelled and scolded her dogs crossly, as though they were to blame for her negligence.
The barking standoff went on for a while. I stood back and waited for the owners to work out a way to get past each other without spilling blood.
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