dog attack
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
What a fncking day this was.
At around noon I was interrupted in whatever I was doing by the sounds of dogs barking and people screaming. If there is a sound that will get your attention, I guarantee that this is it.
So I went to the balcony and had a look. Sure enough, a Doberman pincher was attacking a small dog. At first I wasn't certain, but it looked a little rougher than usual. Then the Doberman took the smaller dog firmly in its mouth and shook the hell out of it.
Certain that the small dog was about to die, I watched the owner of the smaller dog try to grab the collar of the Doberman. This only resulted in the small dog getting free, and it looked like maybe the woman got bitten.
The small dog ran through a row of low bushes, with the Doberman circling the row to close in for the kill. The woman threw herself on top of her dog, and the Doberman started biting her on the upper arm and shoulder.
I ran for the phone, and dialled 911.
When I got back to the balcony, the dog had left the woman to attack another woman who was shielding her own small dog from the beserk Doberman.
I babbled this at the 911 operator (God there can't be enough money in the world for that job) in response to her question "Do you need police, firemen, or ambulance?" As she tried to ask for some sanity, I kept on babbling the blow-by-blow as the Doberman gave up on the second woman and started randomly charging and trying to bite everything that moved.
Then the first woman grabbed the Doberman's collar, and the dog started thrashing about. A man with a leash walked up and calmly put the leash on the dog, and made a beeline away from the scene.
The bitten woman started pursuing him, pointing and shouting. A dozen other people had gathered around, and I could see that one other fellow was using cellphone, perhaps to call 911 as well. Everyone was moving away from the street into the green space that runs between the blocks in the neighbourhood (between rows of townhouses and apartment buildings).
So I told the 911 operator I'd meet the cops on the street, and hurried down there just in time for the first cop's arrival.
When I told him where the man had led the dog, he was off in a squeel of tires. I then went over to where all of the people were huddled, because no cops were over there, and I didn't know what was happening but there was still shouting and wailing going on. Again, a rather difficult combination of sounds to ignore.
As I approached, I could see an Asian woman sporting big cuts to her upper arm, holding a small dog. Clearly the one who'd been bitten. At her feet was a woman of East-European origin, on her knees sobbing and begging the Asian woman, incoherently wailing about her dog. I guessed that this was the owner of the Doberman. There were a few other people hanging around.
Apparently someone had seen me talking with the cop, because the Asian woman started to tell the East-European woman to tell it to 'the office', and pointed at me. I told them I wasn't a cop, but that I'd seen it all.
As time went by, I compared what I'd seen with the other fellow who'd I'd seen making the call, and with two other by-standers. We'd all seen it play out the same way, the only difference being that I'd missed the onset (the first woman to be attacked had - in the first few seconds - thrown her poor dog into the dumpster to protect it, and fled) and that I'd been able to see quite a different view from the 22nd floor.
After a while, I realized that no police were turning up. So I decided to go see if I could find a cop. Running the length of the green space that the man with the insane dog had just traversed, I closed in on the corner where I'd last seen two cop cars.
I almost made it before slipping in some dog shit.
Recovering from the unbalance (if not the irony), I got to the corner, but found it empty. So I decided to carry on down the street. Where I ran into the same cop again.
He let me into the back of his cruiser when I told him that I'd found own of the owners. Hearing this, he spoke into his radio and told some of his colleagues to release a man they'd stopped who fit the description and had the right kind of dog.
When we got to the spot where the women were still gathered (thankfully), I found that the dog's owner had passed out on the ground, and that all three of the attacked women were back, two of them with their attacked dogs (the dumpster dog would not make an appearance).
When he had a chance to look at the bitten women, the cop called on his radio for an ambulance, and tried to figure out what the fnck was going on.
No sooner had the ambulance arrived than the first man with a TV camera followed suit. The cops and I groaned at the same time, knowing that dog attacks have become an issue in the city of late. I quickly set about writing down a barely legible, self-contradictory statement, and left. But not before I shook the hand of the cop I'd been dealing with, noting how good the police service was in this city (as compared to places like Sydney).