Day 13: June 13, 2009 (practicing for victory, Diane Whipple, Cujo, pet theories, and irresponsible pet owners)

Position: Driver

Soundtrack: Neil Diamond The Greatest Hits (1966-1992)  

Number of Deliveries: 13

Sales: $447.26

Tips: $78

Hours: 4.38

Total Wage: $25.81 per hour

On my way to work, I see a guy wearing racing gear and riding a bike. Right before I pass him, he pumps his fist and cheers toward the side of the road, like he just won the Tour de France. This takes place on a random section of Via de Santa Fe, and I don't see any competition nor a finish line marker. As I pass him, he continues celebrating. Maybe he beat some personal best time. I watch in the rearview mirror, and he now has both hands raised to the sky, head tilted back, and veins bulging from his neck while he keeps riding. The only thing missing is a champagne shower. Maybe some people practice for races, but this guy is practicing for victory. I like that.

Everything goes smoothly tonight, until I get to my second to last delivery, which is way out in Cielo. When I pull into the downward sloping driveway, I swear I see a dog near the bushes of the front yard. It's too dark to make anything out. Maybe it was a coyote, which are pretty common out here in the hilly chaparral, but it looked too big. It doesn't help that I read the Evan Wright piece, "Mad Dogs & Lawyers," in his new book, Hella Nation, this afternoon, which is all about the horrific San Francisco Diane Whipple mauling in 2001 by a Presa Canario, a Spanish dog bred in the sixteenth century to "pin down bulls for slaughter." This is the image I haven't been able to get out of my head all afternoon: "Alec Cardenas . . . [found] the victim lying facedown on the hall carpet in front of her apartment. She was naked, covered in blood, her upper back punctured with dog bites. Blood was splashed on the walls for about twenty feet down the hall . . . the cause of death was cardiac arrest; she had lost nearly all of her blood." 

Many years ago, while working at Leucadia Pizzeria's Encinitas store, I delivered to a house in Leucadia with a six-foot wooden fence surrounding the yard. Adept at dealing with dogs from years of delivering, I knew to bang on the gate several times and whistle before I entered. I went in. When I was about halfway between the gate and the front door, the heavy-set woman, who must have heard me banging around, opened the front door wearing only a muumuu and said, "Oh, you're in the yard," then glanced about. "Should I not be?" I said, then looked to my left to see a German Shepherd mutt peer around the corner of the house. "Um . . . it's okay," she said. I took slow, deliberate steps toward her, while the dog approached me from behind and nestled it's snout in my ass crack. I handed her the pizza, and held on for an extra second. As soon as I released the food, I felt teeth dig into my right calf. "Ow," I yelled. Now, it took a second to realize the dog had only nipped me, but it might as well have torn off my calf. "Did he bite you?" she asked as she hurried to set the pizza down. "Get your dog. Get your dog," I yelled, in full panic mode. She called the dog inside, and I made my way for the gate, my nerves frazzled from the adrenaline shot. She closed the front door and called to me as I exited the gate, "Are you okay?" I glared at her. "Do you want another dollar?"

Tonight, as soon as I'm out of the car and getting the food from the back seat, I see a large, tan dog dart out of the house through the open side door closest to me. I don't have time to think, I just react.

I should mention I have an undeserved reputation for disliking dogs. The truth is, I don't dislike dogs––I actually love them––I'm just not a fan of pet ownership, especially ownership of attack dogs. I don't want to get into a theological discussion about evolution and the theory of natural selection, but here it is at work: by choosing one animal that satisfies a human desire, unconditional love and loyalty, you sacrifice another animal that doesn't, such as a grizzly bear. Grizzly bears go extinct, German Shepherds multiply. And I also don't want to get into emotional transference to pets and how the pet industry is an obscene forty-five billion dollar monster (there are people starving out there), but you get the point. I hope. (Don't feel bad about owning pets, just acknowledge what they are and let's move on.) 

Before the dog can reach me, I lift the pizza bag and jump into the backseat of my car. The dog looks like a cross between a wolf and a lab. It's not the most intimidating dog I've seen, but I'm not taking my chances. My attitude around Rancho Santa Fe has been that if you're going to be dumb enough to let your dog attack me, I think it might be financially beneficial for me to take one for the team. But then I picture Diane Whipple and the blood and puncture wounds, and I cower in the backseat of my car. The dog circles the car, and I try to remember everything Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer, has ever said, especially the part about how dogs are professional readers of body language. The dog runs off into the bushes. The people aren't coming outside, so I decide to get out. The dog reappears through the side door (he's doing laps, I guess), and just as I open the door and place my feet on the driveway, he's at my crotch, while I'm still seated, holding the black pizza bag. I play it cool and as I stand up, I say in a playful voice, "Okay, okay, that's good, that's good, boy. We got pizza. You like pizza, huh? You like pizza?" 

I walk to the front door, and the dog follows me. It's a win or lose thing when you're carrying food around dogs: either the dog's going to be chill in order to get rewarded, or it's going to attack you like a crocodile and rip the food out of your hand. I ring the doorbell, and the dog shoots off into the bushes again. A kid answers the front door and a real German Shepherd pokes its massive head around the kid's legs. My heart beats faster, but I try to remain calm, blurting out the total and thinking, Dog Whisperer, Dog Whisperer. The German Shepherd tries to get out, but the kid bends down and holds it around the neck. I'm praying the kid has the strength to restrain a beast larger than himself. He pulls it back, and his sister pays. 

I'm so dog-frazzled by now, I want to scream. They pay me, and as I get to my car, here comes dog number one through the side door, again. If he can get out, can't the German Shepherd, too? I jump in my car and slam the door, trying to calm down in my safe haven. Or is it? The Stephen King Cujo car scene comes to mind. Dog one gives me a dumb stare, and now I feel stupid. I also feel victorious, like I just survived the Tour de Dog, and I should be pumping my fists and shouting in victory, but that's not my style.