mindstalk | In which a dog attack gets me 40 dollars and maybe delayed trauma (Reply)

I was walking home today, in my Vflex mask against germs and pollen. A couple of people approaching were walking big dogs. I've had a dog bark at me before, also when masked so maybe that provokes them? so I tried to give them space and not make eye contact.

Didn't work. The first dog suddenly barked/growled and lunged at me, faster than I could process. Owner reined him in and apologized a lot. Very apologetically, offering info/money/first-aid kid.

On examination, I seemed fine. There was an alarming red wound on my calf, but that's actually from my bicycle pedal whacking me a few days ago, which I told him; no new wounds found. My backpack, though... the water bottle webbing had been severely frayed, with big holes, but it did work. Not any more! One massive hole, my bottle on the ground, and also a big wad of webbing on the sidewalk.

He asked if he could do anything, I suggested a few dollars toward a new backpack. I'd been thinking I probably needed a new one anyway, so I was thinking $5. But he brought out $40, and when I tried giving some back (figured I'd keep the $20 bill), he pressed it on me. Well, I only refuse once when people offer me money...

Part of me feels a bit bad, taking the money when almost nothing happened. OTOH a new backpack will probably cost more than $40. And also, it could have been so much worse; just luck that the dog went for my backpack and not me. $40 tax for not training/controlling his dog enough is maybe quite fair.

Also alarming is... this the second time I, or my belongings, have been attacked; first time was years ago in Chile, when two big dogs ill-controlled by a small boy savaged my grocery bags (which did have raw beef in them, albeit packaged.) And what strikes me about both incidents is how fast they were. Like, if you imagine a dog attack, you might think "I'll see it coming, and be able to swing my backpack to intercept." Whereas the reality has been more like "one moment the dog is over there, the next moment it's right here and my stuff is hitting the ground." In a real attack I would just get savaged. So that's fun to carry forward.