Been through the entire thread and felt the love you all have for your pets. I'm a pet person myself, mainly dogs throughout my life, but I recently married the love of my life and wouldn't you know she has a cat. Go figure! But as I said I'm a dog person. I like them and they love me. I was born in the Year of the Dog so I guess that explains it. But I tell you this to tell you about an incident I had with 3 HUGE Rottweilers.
I was working for GTE/Hawaiian Tel and I was the night lineman. I got called out one night when a garbage truck, with forks extended up, pulled down around 8 drop lines (the lines that lead to the house). It was around 11pm and I was just about to start on my last drop. I had driven past the house many times during the day. A Viet Nam veteran, who was in a wheel chair, lived there and he built hot rods. He had a 66 Chevy that was absolutely gorgeous! Well, I follow the line around back and I come to a REALLY tall fence. It had to be over 10 feet tall and encircled the whole yard. There were no signs, but it screamed DOG!, so I violently shook the gate...nothing. I shook it again...nothing. So I shine my flashlight and three pairs of eyes illuminate way in the back. The eyes are close together, so I'm thinking cats. I open the gate and walk in, shining my light on where the line used to be, up under the eaves. I get to the electric/cable demarcation point and it's trashed. It was completely ripped off the wall and I start accessing the damage & what I'll need to repair it when I hear this REALLY HEAVY breathing behind me. I turn around and there stand three huge Rottweilers just staring at me. I know not to run so I put out my hand, palm down, to see what they'll do. They go crazy on me...they wanted to play and I was going to be their toy whether I liked it or not! So I played with them for around 15 minutes. I tried to get back to work, but they wouldn't leave me alone! So I notice the lady of the house in the kitchen washing dishes, so I knock on the door. She hears it but thinks it's the front door. When she comes back I knock again but this time, after a really confusing look, she opens the door and just stares at me. So I ask her if she could put the dogs away so I can finish the job. She yells to her husband to come quick! The husband rolls to the back door and asks me what the hell are you doing? I tell him that I'm fixing the phone line like I told you around 4 hours ago. He yells at the dogs about not doing their job which gets them barking and snarling, but their tails were wagging the whole time. I also asked them if they could turn on the backyard flood lights as it would help me greatly. The man says loudy, "You should go to Vegas cuz you're the luckiest MF on this island!" And he was right! The dogs didn't attack me and when I looked back towards the gate...there was so much dog crap, piles everywhere, it was like a minefield. I had traversed the entire backyard minefield, in the dark, and didn't step in a single pile! Now that is luck in anyone's book.
After I was pau (finished) the owner offered me a beer and we had a brief chat. Seems he paid big bucks to have the dogs trained to keep burglars and thieves from ripping off his cars, car parts and tools. He also had to pay to have all his utilities moved to the back of the house and the fence raised to 10 feet because the meter readers couldn't get close enough to read the meter as the dogs would charge the fence. The meters were around 60 feet from the demarc. He just couldn't believe that I actually came in to his yard and they didn't attack me. In fact, the whole time we were drinking the dogs were laying at MY feet. It was almost like they were my dogs! They were enormous and absolutely beautiful dogs. If they had attacked me I wouldn't have stood a chance. Goes to show you: God does protect stupid people...I am living proof of that! ALOHA!!
P.S. I gave the dogs big rubs & hugs before I left. They started barking after I closed the gate. Better late than never...I guess?