A new family just moved into the last house on our side of Patricia Lane but we haven’t met them yet. Patricia Lane ends at a barricade with a field and drainage ditch beyond there and has about 10 houses on each side of the block-long street. It doesn’t have any sidewalks so we get around by walking across people’s front yards except that some people don’t want us doing that. Because it’s a dead-end, we play and walk in the street without much worry.
It’s Saturday and I’m out on our front lawn with sister Linda, Sandy & Dave Jones, and Tam, our Siamese cat that likes hanging around with us.
“Look,” Linda says. “That boy must be from the new family.”
Walking up the middle of the street toward us is a boy who’s probably 12 or 13 years old. In front of him walks his big scary-looking Boxer dog.
None of us moves. No one says anything. We just stare.
When the boy and his dog are still two houses away, Tam leaves the concrete front step and starts slowly toward the street. She picks up her pace angling across the lawn and in a moment she is in the middle of Patricia Lane charging headlong straight at the approaching pair. The dog suddenly stops, opens its eyes wide with surprise at the unreal sight of a cat charging him head-on. An instant later he yelps as Tam slashes her claws across his nose. Panicking, the Boxer wheels around, and the initial moment of his dash to safety takes him ramming into his master. The collision throws the boy back on his butt as his dog frantically runs right over him.
The boy scrambles back to his feet, turns to his fleeing dog and calls, “Max Stop! Max come here! Max!” The Boxer continues to run as though his life depends on it and the boy runs off in pursuit still calling the dog’s name. We watch as the dog races to the end of the street and to the house that is its new home. The boy runs yelling until he also reaches his new home. They both go inside, and all is quiet. I turn my attention back to Tam who is proudly walking back up across our lawn and onto the front step where she calmly begins washing herself, confident the dog has learned his lesson and will forever treat her with the respect she so rightly deserves.