Dog on the Loose—and Dragging a Table

(AS TOLD BY PETER)

IN THE SUMMER OF 2012, Dana was in Florida at the Republican Convention, so I decided to take four-month-old Jasper to visit friends in Annapolis. They of course loved the adorable puppy, and I took him for walks and let him swim on a small beach.

One morning I decided to take him to the City Dock area where I had often walked with Henry; he and I would stop at a small café there and sit outside—he would enjoy a biscotti while I drank my coffee.

I tied Jasper’s leash to a wrought-iron table and told him to sit while I went and ordered my drink. As he was just outside the door I could see him through the glass.

Just after I turned away to pay for my drink, someone said to me, “Excuse me, is that your dog?” Thinking he was about to say the usual “cute puppy” or similar, I smiled, nodded, and looked out the window, at which point my smile vanished.

Jasper on the beach. Can you tell he wants to go kayaking?

Jasper was running across the road dragging the table behind him.

I rushed from the coffee shop just as he was reaching the other side where a truck was parked and unloading. Jasper had moved and pulled the table—this made a noise, which frightened him, and he took off.

Unfortunately, this only exacerbated the situation, as the table was banging and clanking at the other end of the leash, and he was unable to escape the very thing he was running from.

I ran across the road shouting, “Jasper, Jasper, it’s okay, baby,” but by the time I reached the other side, he had run around the truck and was about to cross the road again. He might have been only four months old, but he was already strong and surprisingly fast—even pulling a table!

He then rounded the front of the truck and commenced back across the road. Fortunately, the street was quiet with no traffic, but a Mercedes and a BMW were parked diagonal to the curb, and he chose to run through the parking space between them. The dollar signs flashed before my eyes, but by a miracle he and his hitched-up table passed through leaving the vehicles unscathed.

By the time I finally caught him, he had crossed the road again on his second lap, and the table got stuck under the tail lift of the truck. The poor little guy was frantic, so I held him and talked gently to calm him. But as soon as we started back across the road, me dragging the table this time, he freaked out again, so I had to carry the table.

When I looked up I saw a gaggle of faces at the window of the café as the laughing customers all took in the spectacle. I tied Jasper to the parking meter, then went inside for my drink.

“I don’t suppose anyone got that on video?”

They had not. I was partly disappointed and partly relieved because my first thought was, “Dana is going to kill me.”

(I waited a couple of weeks to tell her. Thankfully, she saw the humor in it by then!)