Walked over to Fraboni’s to pick up a sandwich for lunch. Took the short cut through the retirement community apartments. Just as I turned in to the parking lot from the road I saw a car parked beside the main entrance. A young woman was standing at the open passenger door. A dog was running up to the car and another dog was in the front seat.

The young woman shrieked and tried to stop the second dog from getting into the car. She was not successful. The dog that had been sitting in front jumped over the seat into the back so the other dog could sit in the front. Once they were both inside, they sat facing forward, eyes bright with expectation. Oh boy! Oh boy! Oh boy! Going for a ride!

A woman about ten years older than I am got out of the driver’s side, looked straight at me and said, “If you don’t want any trouble with me, you’d better get these dogs under control right now!”

I froze in my tracks. Wait. What?

She must have read the surprise in my face. “Are these your dogs?”

“No!”

But I helped her get them out of her car anyway. Wasn’t easy. I got one of them to come out by simply calling him, but the older lady tried to get the other one out by hitting it with an ice scraper. That only made him jump over the seat into the back, so she opened the back door and tried to hit him again. That’s when the other dog got away from me and jumped into the front seat. It went like that for a while until I could finally get the lady to shut all but the driver door and call the dogs out one by one. Then I had to keep them busy while she got into the car. When they noticed she was leaving, they wanted to jump right over her back into the car, so she used the ice scraper on them again. For a couple of pit bulls, they were extremely forgiving with the way she was treating them.