It involved calling the police

Do I have a story for you... (and it has nothing to do with France!)

I babysit for a little girl (22 months) named Eleanor. She lives in a neighborhood that won't make America's 50 Safest Small Towns; this is due to questionable characters and - to a lesser extent - two particular dogs who run loose. This story is about Eleanor's & my encounter with those dogs and (for cheesy effect) a stolen valuable.

Thursday morning at 8:50 A.M., Eleanor and I set out. Our plan is to walk to IWU and deliver some news to Eleanor's mom. The walk is short - less than five minutes - but "dangerous" because of the aforementioned dogs. Periodically the black dog has run at full speed at us, barking all the while. However, I've made my truce with that dog because he ambles over when he is three feet away and just sniffs Eleanor and I. He stops barking and will walk with us for about a block. I can live with that.

Today, however, the black dog was joined by a brown & white dog. I did what my sister taught me to do - slow down and stop, and then resume walking - when I saw them start running in our direction. The dogs believe a five block radius (including Eleanor's home) is their eminent domain and often bark at and run after university students who walk through. This time the black dog approached as normal, but the brown & white dog ran full speed up to Eleanor - on my hip - and me.

I freaked out. He was nipping at my wristlet and Eleanor's kicking legs. Playful attempts to nip or not, I didn't know. My first thought was, "Oh dear Lord, how do I get us out of this situation?" Eleanor protested the excessive attention the jumping brown & white dog was giving us. The black dog continued to circle us, barking. On one jump, the brown & white dog knocked the garage door opener off my coat pocket where it had been clipped on. It fell to the ground and he snatched it up in his mouth. And ran away!

Great! This stupid dog just attacked me* and now he's stolen the garage door opener! Now how am I going to get Eleanor and I inside? The garage door is shut. While I'm freaking out about being trapped outside in the cold with two exuberant, barking dogs, the brown & white dog hits the "open" button as he runs down the block. So now I can get inside, but I also realize there is a dog who can run through the neighborhood with the garage door opener in mouth, opening and closing the primary entrance to Eleanor's home. Fabulous.

I dash into the house with Eleanor burrowing her head into my shoulder. The dogs follow us into the garage. I open the house door quickly and slam it shut before one of the dogs think to follow us inside. I wait by the mudroom window to see when both dogs leave the garage. The black dog exits. The brown & white dog runs out - with a boot in his mouth!

Could this get any more comical?

I call Eleanor's mom and Anne comes home. She calls the police and reports the situation. The police and Animal Control show up, struggling not to laugh. By this point I'm okay laughing at the situation. "Dog jumps on Babysitter and Child; Steals Garage Door Opener." It should be on America's Funniest Home Videos or in the "At Work" joke section in Reader's Digest. Animal Control ended up taking the two dogs and found the boot in the backyard of the owner's home. However, they didn't find the garage door opener. I'm not sure what else I could have done differently to prevent this farcical event; but because Eleanor and I are okay, it's a good story worth repeating.

*when I use the phrase attack I mean that a large dog jumped on me (while I was carrying a toddler). I don't know this dog, I don't know its temperament, and I'm not comfortable around large dogs anyway. Neither Eleanor nor I sustained injuries. However, I don't care how "friendly" you think the dog was being - I feel like I should have the right to walk down the street without getting jumped on by an unknown dog.