I like dogs, always have.  I don’t have the time to own one myself but they’re nice to have around.  Lucky for me, I frequent a bar that is dog-friendly.  As I sit and swill my whiskey, there is usually one or more canines dozing under the barstools and sniffing crotches.  It’s the sort of behavior I only wish I could get away with myself but I’m willing to live vicariously through them.

It is therefore reasonable to assume that if there is some trouble facing one one if these animals, I’m not going to be impartial about it.  This past Wednesday, there was. And I’m not.

Since the incident might still be a police matter and I’d prefer to plead ignorance if questioned, I shall change the names of both the people and dog involved.

I’m friends with a married couple, whom I’ll call Mr. and Mrs. Lockhorn, who frequent the bar and make it a habit of bringing their yellow lab, whom I’ll call Cujo.  Cujo is a playful scamp who has a friendly disposition toward both man and beast.  She does however bark at small children, which is OK because they shouldn’t even be in a bar unless they have a real good fake ID.

So Mr. and Mrs. Lockhorn went outside to smoke and Cujo went with them (for the record, Cujo is a non-smoker).  There is a church a few doors down from the bar, one of those evangelical houses of worship where poor people can go and thank Jesus for being poor.  Anyway, a service was letting out and Cujo, off leash, started barking at one of the children on the sidewalk.

The kid’s father was livid.  Rather than doing the gracious thing and accepting Mr. Lockhorn’s halfhearted apology as sincere, he started in on city leash laws and proceeded to call the cops on his cell phone.

He was similarly unreceptive to Mr. Lockhorn’s suggestion that he go fuck himself.

When a police car pulled up in front of the bar, the Lockhorns and Cujo had already left for the evening.  The father was still there, waving his arms and complaining to a couple of cops who certainly had better things to do.

I hope this little incident blows over and there is no bad blood between the churchgoers and bar patrons.  After all, we’re really not so different.  I’ve been known to speak in tongues after my eighth Jameson’s.  Christians do that when full of the Holy Spirit.  I do it when full of a whole lot of spirits.  Whatever works.