Pepper gets bitten
1st Jan 2010
I know I am treading on thin ice when I refer to a certain underclass as “soap-dodgers”. You know whom I am talking about because you’ve seen them about. The girls wear those trousers with the crutch below the knees, they live in old and poorly converted lorries or vans and they have dogs, frequently pit bulls, Staffordshire bull terriers or rottweilers. They generally don’t give a damn about other people, other peoples property, law legislation and their dogs are often aggressive, a fact that my dog Pepper unfortunately learned today. I know a little bit this sort of person as I had the misfortune to live next to a campground in Chamonix who’s owner decided to accept a contract from the local council to provide a winter camping facility for itinerant workers. There was an allocation for 15 vehicles. Which meant about 30 people and about 45 dogs. To be fair, many of the dogs were OK and sociable with other dogs. But there was an abnormally proportion of dogs that were aggressive and could not be let to run free.
So I was driving near Beziers today and saw a sign for a McDonalds. I’m not proud of it but I pulled over because I wanted to use their free wifi facility. I noticed a group of Spanish vans fuelling up. They were driven by young folk sporting a typical soap dodger look. But I thought as they were Spanish, they would be different from their ne’er do well French counterparts who had lived next door to me for 2 seasons. I didn’t approach them but I did notice they had a large white dog running around the car park. I think he was a “dogue Argentine”. He looked friendly enough, bounding about the all but empty car park with his owner. So I let Pepper out to socialise. He had a sniff then the white dog sunk his teeth into poor Pepper. I ran over, Pepper was squealing like a pup, the white dog’s mouth was clamped round Pepper and even as I tried to drag the big dog off, he wouldn’t let go. A thought popped into my head, a friend had once told me of a certain type of dog that won’t let go no matter what you do. I thought I was going to have to do something drastic but after a few seconds of me hoisting this beast into the air, he released and Pepper scuttled off to Safety.
Poor Pepper was very shaken, he jumped back into the van visibly trembling. I had a quick look over him and checked out his neck where I thought the dogs powerful jaws had been. I saw nothing. But later on I noticed he was limping and after a another look I noticed a big puncture mark on his right shoulder.
So now am sitting in Canet Plage near Perpignan, Pepper is curled up on the seat and hasn’t moved for a couple of hours. He is as miserable as shit and can hardly walk. There is a vet not far from where I am but they may not be open tomorrow. I need to get his wound treated and get him some antibiotics otherwise I feel he get an infection.
Later that day just as the sun was setting I saw a flock of birds rossting for the night.
