The fish eye

Up until yesterday there was a 2 or 3 inch layer of ice covering all of the dog park, except for a small area someone had cleared. Yesterday, though, the ice began to melt because it was finally sunny and fairly warm. Some of the water was running into the drain in the center of the park, but the majority had pooled up into small ponds. I got a bit of a bee in my bonnet about making channels for the water to run smoothly from the pools to the drain, first just kicking and tossing ice chunks out of the way, then digging fresh passageways with a shovel. I was pretty into it. After I'd been at it for some time and was nearly done creating a new canal, a guy started breaking up some of the ice with his foot, and the chunks of ice blocked the waterway. I told him that he was "messing up my channels" and asked him to stop. He smiled but looked at me like I was insane. Then I got really embarrassed -- messing up my channels? -- and left.

Today we took Bean to the park -- the same dog park she's been to twice a day nearly every day of her life, the same one where she saw me snap at the guy yesterday. She has some bad character traits, I'll admit: she too can snarl and snap, usually at the handful of dogs that are smaller than she. We have mental lists of the thousand things that can set her off: another dog is on a leash; Yorkies; she's on or just got off of her leash; she feels trapped under the bench; she just saw the dachshunds; she's guarding a squeaky toy; etc., etc. Today, though, she just crazily attacked a beagle for virtually no reason (well, she had just gotten off her leash and the beagle was waiting for her right inside the gate). But she attacked this little dog's face with relish and the obvious intent to maim and kill. The beagle cried and bled right near its eye, but it went to the emergency vet and was fine. I'm still giving Bean the cold shoulder, which is kind of unfair -- who holds a grudge against a dog? Still, I can't look at her the same way again -- therein lurks the heart of a killer, which just totally messes up my channels to think about.