Did My Dog Just Save Me from Disaster?

Something happened to me the other night that has made me realize that my world may not be as safe as I was letting myself believe. This has also raised many questions in my mind about if men understand what it is like to grow up learning how to always be on guard no matter where you are at. Maybe I overreacted but that leaves me to question if, like animals, our instincts as women are passed down from the female line which we come.

Let me take a minute to explain what happened! The other night I came home from work and got the dog ready for his nightly walk. Snoop is a five-month-old Valley Bulldog and weighs about 60 pounds, he has been the happiest dog I have ever known. Never shown any signs of aggression and loves everyone he meets, human or animal. When we walk him if he sees anyone, he wags his tail and wants to play, does not bark at other dogs etc. etc. He even thinks leaves blowing in the wind are friends to play with. So, what happened that day was not at all expected.

We went for a walk on a wooded trail around pond that is close to my house. It’s not far from the road at all but it is a good hike if you go all the way. We had just been there the day before and thoroughly enjoyed our walk. After walking about 10 minutes on to the trail Snoop came to a dead stop and refused to move. Which never happens as he loves his walks! I looked down the trail and I saw a man walking towards me. I tried everything I could to get my pup to keep walking, but he simply refused. He stood directly in front of me until the man passed by me and it was all I could do to hold my usually happy dog back from the man. The poor dog was on guard, every hair on his back stood straight up and he was snarling. After the man was a good distance past me, I tried again to get the dog to continue our walk, but he pulled and struggled with me to go back the way we came. I thought he was going to pull my arm off he was so panicked to get me out of that trail. On our way out I stopped for a minute to catch my breath and over the dogs whining I heard someone walking behind me. I started moving again and when I got almost to the end of the trail, I saw that the man who had passed me was standing at the end waiting for something. He looked right at me and I was terrified! I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called my mom. I put the phone on speaker so he could hear that I was talking to someone. When he heard my phone start ringing, he turned and went the other way towards his car. When Mom answered I told her “Just talk to me until I get to my car!” I walked as quickly as I could to my car. Which was not hard because the dog was still pulling, we got into the car and I watched the man drive away. When I looked back towards the trail there was a man standing at the edge of the trail watching me. I turned around and drove out to get on the road to home and when I did, I saw the first man pull back into the parking lot, I watched in my mirror as the second man started walking towards the car to get in. I talked to Mom all the way home and when I got home, I burst into tears. I was shaking!!

Once I got into my house and calmed down a bit, I started talking to people I know explaining what had happened to me and the reactions were mixed. Which is what started the questions in my head wondering why some people just did not understand what had happened. And then I saw the difference! The women that I talked to understand my panic and yet the men that I talked to tried to come up with a reasonable explanation and imply that I was overreacting. My little dog never left my side the rest of the evening, every time we went outside he was on high alert. He stayed that way until he finally couldn't stay awake any longer. Poor guy was exhausted.

And therein lies the difference. My best friend said it perfectly “Of course they think you are overreacting; they are not women and have no idea what it is like to live with that constant fear when your alone!”

And that is the truth, Men do not have the same sense of wariness that is instilled in us from the time we are young girls. They have no idea that walking at night is dangerous because they aren’t given the same rule set as children. Not through any fault of parenting but just because it is known that women are in far more danger throughout life. We must be on guard and quite honestly have honed our instincts to the point that we know when something is off. If we tell you that we felt uneasy, scared, or downright terrified, you can bet your last dollar that there was something that caused us to feel that way. Is this something we have learned by listening to the rules made by our parents or is this an instinct that was given to us by years of fear that our female ancestors have had to endure? And why are we still in a world that gives women a reason to feel that way in broad daylight?

Sure, some will say that I should not have been walking a wooded trail alone with my dog but, why shouldn’t I be? Why can I not go into my own community alone for a walk and feel safe? Why do we live with the burden of being cautious and constantly on edge when we go out alone? And why are we limited to where we can go to enjoy a beautiful day after a long winter?

This feeling is not even one that we acknowledge daily. It is not something we notice at all. It is just there. We don’t let that feeling run our lives, but we do have to pay attention to it, and it does limit what we do. Never again will I take my dog to that trail to walk, because I can never feel comfortable again when I’m alone there. As women I am sure that we have all had experiences like this and it shapes who we are in life. This will be something that we have to deal with our entire lives, and we shouldn’t have to at all. We are human and should be able to just live life.

Am I angry that men don’t understand what it is like to live with the feeling of being on guard all the time? No, but I sure am jealous!! To be able to do whatever they want and not have to worry about walking in the woods with their dogs, or alone. What freedom that must be!!

What does anger me about this is that my feeling of safety is constantly taken away and the fact that when this stuff happens, I am told that I was just overreacting, and I shouldn’t get so worked up all the time over nothing.

REALLY????? To all the people out there, please stop saying this!! Please stop belittling a feeling that you can never understand! If you are one of the people who do not live with this fear, be thankful and try to understand that some of us can never shake that feeling of always looking over your shoulder when you are alone in what could turn into a bad situation very quickly if the circumstances are right. When I reach out to talk to anyone about my life, I am not looking for judgement. Do not look at me with that smirk on your face and say, “Are you sure…….” The look that says I’m acting like a silly little girl and just making a big deal out of nothing. Please just try to understand that this fear is a real thing. We have been given this burden to live with our entire lives and we must pay attention to it. It is not irrational; I don’t need to relax! I need you to understand, have sympathy, comfort me, and tell me that I am safe. So I can get back to a place where I am not checking windows and doors a dozen times before I go to bed to make sure they are locked. Only to lay there most of the night wondering if those same men followed me home and now know where I live, Listening for any tiny noise out of the ordinary. Waking up the next morning, exhausted and forcing myself to stand up tall and do my best to get through the day. If you have never had to feel this way, you have no idea what it takes away from your soul. You have no idea how hard it is to get back to yourself and see the world as a safe place. Just try to understand.

Historically, women were diagnosed with Hysteria and given many various treatments for having any kind of feeling at all. Symptoms such as Anxiety, nervousness, insomnia, irritability, and the two that contradict themselves, Sexual desire and the loss of sexual appetite. Which in my opinion these feelings would have been much worse 100 years ago as the attitudes towards women were much worse back then. Once diagnosed a woman was subjected to various treatments as radical as being forced into an insane asylum or given a hysterectomy. Imagine, in an age where women were seen as no more than a means to have a house kept and produce an heir, given no respect and treated like worthless beings, just imagine feeling anxious or nervous! Days where wives ended up mysteriously ill, locked away or even beheaded when they were of no use anymore, and yet those same women were never allowed to show any emotions at all.

We have come a very long way as a society but not far enough if as women we are still faced with living under the cloud un uncertainty if we decide to do something crazy like talk a walk alone!! There will always be dangers lurking, there will always be evil in the world and for women those dangers are higher than they are for men. I do not wish that men had to feel the fears that women do but I do wish that no one had to feel them. I wish that we could all have that blessed feeling of freedom to just live life as we wanted to.