Several years ago, I had to take my Rottie, the late Chelsea (veteran therapy dog) to the vet. I don't remember the circumstances, but it wasn't anything really serious because Chelsea was not ill or hurt. But for whatever the reason, my senior citizen Rottie and I found ourselves sitting in the vet's waiting room on this fine day.
The vet worked on a first come first served basis, so the waiting room was fairly crowded with people who were waiting in line ahead of us. Shortly after we arrived, a man who looked like he was in his twenties came in with a small, fuzzy black puppy in a box. I overheard him tell the receptionist that he was there to have the puppy vaccinated. He sat diagonally from us.
Next, in came a forty-something woman with a little boy who appeared to be around 6 or 7. She didn't have the animal with her, but she wanted to speak about her dog. Because the office was so full, the only seats available were directly across from Chelsea and me. I had my head buried in a book at the time, but looked up when I heard her dramatic intake of breath. She had spotted Chelsea.
Let me pause for a second to tell you about Chelsea's attitude toward the vet's office. She feared the place with all of her heart. Typically, she started visibly shaking as soon as she realized where she was. In fact, as she grew older, she eventually came to recognize the exit I would take to get to the office and would start trembling as soon as I pulled off of the interstate.
So basically, Chelsea hardly looked intimidating or imposing when the woman first laid eyes on her.
I did my best not to glare at the woman and went back to my book.
Since she did not want to stand, she took the two empty seats. She took pains to keep her child in his seat. But the boy was really persistent about wanting to get up and visit all of the doggies.
According to Karen Delise's book Fatal Dog Attacks, "79% of all fatal attacks were on children under the age of 12>" (http://www.fataldogattacks.com/statistic...
Eventually, she relented enough to let him visit with two toy dogs that belonged to an elderly couple sitting on her other side. The child kept loudly demanding to be allowed to hold one of their leashes and putting his face close to theirs. Several times, the couple had to stop the child from trying to hug the tiny dogs.
