Two dogs are probably a better idea, since a dog pack is the scariest thing I can think of that doesn’t involve human intelligence. (Yes, I’m including wolf packs, although the wolves that are raised by humans are probably just as scary if they pack up, and I consider wolf/dog mixes to be feral dogs. Ditto coydogs, or any other exotic mix.)

I do know I’d rather have a trained dog than pepper spray, since I know a dog physically attacking will slow someone down even if they’re use to it, while drugs, luck or long term exposure makes pepper spray not work. Much rather have a gun than either option, and much much rather have my husband with a gun while I’m on the phone with the police that are just down the road…..

(Since someone ALWAYS claims that pepper sprays are failproof: Ask folks about the Navy “Confidence Chamber,” or the guys who do the certifications for military/police grade pepper spray. Some people are immune off the bat–lucky guy my husband qualled for security detail with, multiple sprays, even got a fresh can and he wasn’t bothered– and all of the guys who ran the chambers when I went through boot camp were utterly immune. You put on gas masks, file in, they stand there and he puts some pellets on a little heater thing and talk to you for ten fifteen minutes while the room fills with smoke and the gas masks work. You think that it can’t be so bad, he’s standing right by the incense thing and is talking yelling perfectly fine. Then you take your mask off and try to say your name or answer a question before you run out. Then you are in a world of hurt for at least an hour, if you’re lucky enough to not be physically ill. When I later asked one of the guys how he could stand it, he said it only took a week or so of several exposures a day, and that it didn’t wear off much.)

For my case, I grew up in farm country where there where lots, and I mean LOTS, of working dogs (herders and hunters, not many guard dogs). Now that I look back on it, dogs (and barn cats and horses), where a very large part of our working and family life, though at the time it did not seem that unusual.

As a young boy, you get used to dogs dying every year. I cried and cried over each and every one of them, even if they were the neighbors. I remember digging graves for them with my father or my uncles, the lot of us weeping as we shoveled the dirt. Those men where tough has nails too. Nothing quite like a good dog. Shoot, I would cry when they killed livestock I knew and loved. I would make a terrible farmer, I guess.

I often think that if our leaders had dogs and to tend to their own dogs themselves, the world might be a better place. Then again, Putin lves his dogs. Well…ts a thought.