Did your mom ever tell you to not pet stray dogs? Well mine did of course, and I listened just as well as any 4 year old would. I was a very hard headed kid at that age, and I never listened to what I was told. We lived in a small town 200 miles west of Middlin, Texas; it was a quiet town with a population around 1,000 people. If you’ve ever been to Texas then you know that it’s about 90% desert, it’s a dry and dusty place. Stray dogs are everywhere be aware and whatever you do don’t pet stray dogs. It was the summer of 1991 in Middlen, Texas the temperature was around 100 degrees. I was soaked from head to toe with sweat from ridding my dirt bike all day. I had gotten a 50cc Suzuki dirt bike from my dad just a year prior and I was loving it. I rode my dirt bike all summer long that year. There was a pit not too far from my house that I could ride in that had some whoop-de-woops, and some jumps. This pit was huge, I mean it was a giant pit, it looked like a comet had struck the earth it was so big. I spent what seemed to be all day at the pit riding my dirt bike. When I finally got home I decided to cool off in the sprinklers, I ran into the house as fast as I possibly could to change clothes. As I got into the house I yelled Mom! Can I go outside and play in the sprinkler, she said yes but I had to eat supper first Dang it, I said under my breath as I continued down the long hallway. When I got to my room I looked everywhere for my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles swimming trucks, they were my favorite.

I looked in all of my draws, under my bed, and in the hamper but I just couldn’t find them any ware, so I settled for my old Spiderman ones in my drawer. I got changed, ran back down the hall and into the kitchen where my mother was cooking dinner, I was thinking it was spaghetti because I could smell the tomato sauce. When I got to the kitchen I realized that it was not spaghetti but meat loaf. All though I really disliked my mother’s meat loaf the spaghetti sauce topping she makes for it is awesome and I could hide what I didn’t eat in the sauce when I was done. I ate the meat loaf but hid the onions, peppers, olives and other stuff that she crams inside of it in the left over sauce I had on my plate. Done I shouted and ran back outside so I could get wet in the sprinkler. As I got out side I noticed that the hose for the sprinkler was around the house in the front yard. We had a big house with a small chain linked fenced in front yard that had some nice green grass growing in it. My dad had to work so hard on that yard to get the grass to grow there so I couldn’t play in the front yard because I would ruin the grass. So I ran around the house to get the hose out of the front yard and hook it up in the back yard. The back yard was big and open, like a couple of football fields long and a couple wide but there was no fence or no nice grass, it was a big pasture full of nothing but rocks, dirt, a few bushes scattered here and there, not to Minchin the occasional tumble weed that would roll by. I unscrewed the water hose and headed to the back yard. Just as I turned the corner of the house to the backyard there was a big, brown chow standing in my way sniffing around the wood pile we had on the side of the house. I had seen the dog earlier that day when I was riding my bike. I think it was the neighbors across the street. I was not scared of the dog as I should have ben & I didn’t think about what my mother had told me, so I sat my water hose down to pet the dog and as I got closer to the dog it was as if the dog didn’t see me or didn’t care that I was there so I crept closer and closer, when I finally reached the dog I started to run my fingers through the dogs fluffy coat from the back of its neck down. It felt so soft and fluffy that I wanted to give the nice puppy a hug so laid my head on its back and started to rub its belly. Just then the dog rose up, and shook me off as I hit the ground the dog stepped over me and commenced to eating my face. At first I just thought the dog wanted to play but as I tried to get him out of my face by swatting, yelling and hitting him it was clear to me that he wasn’t playing any more. I started screaming at the top of my lungs in hopes that my mom would hear me. Just as I was getting tired and to where I couldn’t defend myself any more, I looked over and saw my mom running at me with my baby sister in her arms screaming at the dog to get off of me. As she got closer to me the dog stopped and looked then ran off. As I laid there trying to catch my breath I noticed the blood that I was covered in and started to cry. Then started to freak out and wanted to get up but my mom wouldn’t let me she said not to move, so I stayed there. As I lie on the ground bleeding and crying I was thinking about what she had said to me about petting stay dogs.