The Dog Story

The Dog Story

My trusty partner Rod and I were cruising back to our station after a nice dinner at a local restaurant when we got a call for chest pain. The call was
easy to find, quite distant, which gave us time to mentally prepare ourselves for the adventure and being a chest pain call, promised to be very routine.

Easy money, I thought.

Shortly after we got the call the dispatcher came on the radio to tell us that the caller had told him that there was a dog that might give us some trouble
in the man’s yard. He’d called animal control and just wanted us to know not to go barging in lest we become dog chow. Still not impressed we continued
on our merry way. Minutes later more news arrived. The animal control officer, apparently there was only one, was tied up on the other end of the county
and wouldn’t be able to join us for nearly an hour. No problem, I thought. This kind of thing usually involved a Chihuahua with an attitude who could easily
be subdued by sacrificing a half-eaten cookie out of someone’s lunch box. “Oh, by the way…” the dispatcher added, “the caller advises that the dog is a
police department trained German shepherd that they rejected because it was too aggressive.”

Okay, so we had a problem. We then devised a carefully thought out strategy that involved staying the hell out of the guy’s yard until animal control or
somebody else who was dim enough to try and subdue a psychopathic canine managed to get the dog out of our way.

When we got to the address we found a dingy singlewide trailer with a porch and a room built on to the side of it. It sat on a fenced in lot, and just inside
the fence was our friend the dog. He was a large dog, even for a shepherd, and he was very, very angry. One of the fire fighters who’d arrived just before
us had, he said, nearly lost a hand in an attempt to calm the dog. We could see our patient through his kitchen window. He was still on the phone with
the dispatcher, who confirmed that the patient was doing well, save his chest pain. We’d wait as planned, we decided.

We returned to the air-conditioned, teeth resistant safety of our ambulance to wait and after five minutes or so the dispatcher called us again on the radio.
“We’ve lost contact with your patient. Can you still see him?” he said. We got out of the ambulance and walked over to where we could see into the kitchen
again. Rod reached the spot first, turned quickly and said “He passed out!” I barely heard this over the snarling, barking, growling rage of the
shepherd, but its message sunk in quickly. I looked to see the phone cord trailing from the wall straight to the floor. We couldn’t wait anymore; we had
to get inside.

“I’ll distract him and you jump the fence” said Rod. This seemed to me to be a less than spectacular plan that would almost certainly result in my being
severely lacerated, but, lacking an intelligent plan we decided to give it a try. Rod went to the edge of the yard and began yelling at the dog. The dog
quickly bolted to where Rod was and gave him its attention. Great, I thought. Maybe I can make it across 30 feet of open ground to the door with 60 pounds
of medical equipment before the dog can cover the 50 feet from Rod to where I was. Assuming the door was unlocked, which was a big assumption, I might
have a chance of getting inside unlacerated. “Great plan,” I thought.

The second I touched the fence to find my footing, the dog was right in front of me again. I backed off. “Okay, we need a new plan” I said.

We regrouped and decided after careful consideration that Rod and I would go to the back of the lot where the dog couldn’t see us and try to get in the
back door while the guys from the fire department kept the dogs attention. Not exactly D-day, but possibly workable.

We took our gear to the back of the lot while the fire fighters distracted Attila the psychopathic attack dog from hell. I’d donned a bunker jacket
to mute the crushing chomp of Attila’s incisors if things went wrong. I also collected an extrication tool (basically a short axe) with which to convince
the door of my extreme interest in its opening once I arrived. Rod got where he could see the dog. I, as quietly as humanly possible and in direct opposition
to any shred of common sense I ever had, eased over the fence. I made my way to the back door successfully, climbed the steps and put my hand on the knob.
It was locked. I cursed under my breath. I then carefully and quietly brought the extrication tool up toward the glass panes in the window. “I can’t believe
I’m doing this,” I thought, and then I broke the window with a sharp rap.

The dog, on hearing this left our fire fighter friends to investigate where upon Rod, having lost site of the dog said my name with a distinct note of
alarm. I think I covered the 20 feet from the back door to the fence in three steps and I was standing at his side before he finished the word. “I got
it,” I said, catching my breath. “We can get in.”

The dog had not wandered from his distracters long, and was back with them before I made it over the fence. We decided on a final blitzkrieg. We’d split
the gear and make a run for the door. We piled on the gear and in a carefully coordinated assault hopped the fence and ran full speed. I reached the door,
stuck my arm through the newly opened windowpane and opened the door. Rod was fast at my heels and as I flung the door open we both rushed inside. The
next thing I knew I was face down on the floor with Rod and all of our equipment on top of me. We were wedged between two twin beds, one of which was
in front of the door we’d just fallen through. Rod, having been put on the planet to make me as nearly insane as possible, began laughing hysterically.
I of course couldn’t help but laugh with him, or as near a laugh as I could produce with my face pressed to the floor by 60 pounds of gear and the weight
of a full grown adult. Then something occurred to me that made me stop laughing. “Rod, I muffled “the door”. We stopped laughing and we both began scrambling
to get up and close the wide-open back door before Attila decided to come through and rip our throats out. After we’d both managed to stomp one another
in several vital areas each Rod reached the door and latched it. We stood, collected our gear, composed ourselves and headed for the kitchen.

On the kitchen floor we found a very boisterous, very drunken man in his late sixties. He still had his chest pain and was deliriously happy to see us.
He slobbered his eternal gratitude as I tried to find out exactly what was wrong. We gave him some oxygen and put him on out heart monitor and all looked
to be in order. I started an IV and gave him some nitroglycerine and his chest pain subsided. “Great,” I thought, now we’re ready to take him to the hospital.
It was then that I came to the brilliant conclusion that we were still in a bit of trouble. We were now trapped inside with Attila outside and had not
only ourselves to rescue, but a 250 pound patient as well. This, I thought, might be difficult.

Rod discovered that the extra room that had been built onto the house had a door directly opposite the porch. He surmised that if we could draw the dog
onto the porch that he might be able to make a very quick jaunt across the 10 feet that separated the bedroom door from the porch door and lock the dog
inside the porch. This was, I thought, risky but possible.

At Rod’s urging I stuck my head out the inside porch door and tried to convince the dog to come inside and eat me. Attila wasn’t buying this. He was perfectly
happy to wait until I walked all the way through the inside door before he even made a move for the porch. Then Rod came up with plan B. “Got any luncheon
meat?” he asked our patient. He assured us that he did and we retrieved some from his refrigerator. Rod moved to the extra bedroom to wait and I dropped
a piece of meat just outside the kitchen door. Attila took no notice. Emboldened by his disinterest I stepped through the door, went to the open porch
door leaned outside and dropped a piece of meat on the ground. The dog immediately stopped barking at the fire fighters and made tracks for the snack.
He consumed it in one chomp, and from the relative safety of the kitchen door I dropped another slice, this one inside the porch. This time he bought it.
He slinked past the open porch door and headed for the meat. Rod burst from the bedroom door and slammed the porch door from the outside trapping Attila
inside. He leapt at the noise, assessed his situation and then, without so much as a bark, he laid down in the corner. He knew he’d been beat. Rod smiled,
out of breath, as he latched the door. He came back into the house. “Man that was fun,” he said. “Yeah, I especially liked the part where we almost got
mauled by a rabid attack dog” I said with a weak smile.

Our patient made it safely to the hospital in our care and after careful assessment was sent home to console his dejected hellhound. We never heard from
Attila or our patient again, but I’m sure they’re terrorizing some unsuspecting passer by at this very moment.