Tongue River Reservoir State Park is surrounded by Native American reservations of Crow and Cheyenne, and below it geographically, in Wyoming was Big Horn. The area is steeped in history and battle. The state park is “a 12-mile long reservoir situated among scenic red shale, juniper canyons, and the open prairies of southeastern Montana.” (State park website.) For us, it was brief respite from driving. I think we stayed two nights because my son was not quite ready for us in Bozeman. But that’s another story.
This story is about Murray and the dogs we’ve encountered in campgrounds… and a bee just landed on my tea cup. SHRIEK!!
If you don’t yet know this about me, I am not a nature girl. I am deathly afraid of spiders. Bees and wasps make me run away. The spider issue has no basis that I know, but the wasp fear is from being stung as an adult by a wasp with a “dirty stinger,” according to the ER doctor. I ended up in the hospital as the red lines of infection went up my arm from my stung thumb, heading for my heart apparently. I had to have an IV of antibiotics and go back the following day for another one. So don’t tell me that they are harmless creatures!
But because of Murray, I am sitting outside in the Arizona sunshine to write my blog post. It was freezing last night but making it up to 64°F today. Alas, as a fair-skinned female with two bouts of skin cancer necessitating surgery, I am not supposed to be out in the sun. Normally, this suits me just fine because there are more spiders and wasps outside than inside. But for Murray, here I am, outside so he can get some air.
Ok, the bee has flown away.
Back to the state park in Montana. Most campgrounds we’ve visited have a lot of dogs. Dogs and RVs seem to go together like mac and cheese or wine and … practically anything after 5 pm. Every campground has the same rules:
- dogs must be leashed
- if they’re tied up outside, you have to be with them
- don’t leave a barking dog in the trailer to drive your neighbors nuts
- always pick up after your dog.
Every one of these rules is broken ALL THE TIME.
The scariest is the unleashed dog. Naturally, people think their dog is an angel and obedient. They think Fluffy will stay right at the campsite, even when another leashed dog walks by. This is not the case.
Murray and I were taking a stroll to check out the available sites at Tongue River, while Philip was filling our freshwater tank. It is a state park in Montana’s southeast quadrant with a pretty peninsula. We were enjoying the walk until a large dog suddenly rushed out at us from behind a trailer, barking wildly. Let me add to the jury that we were in the middle of the road, not even near the other camper’s site.
I cannot recall the dog’s name, but while Murray goes from interested sniffing to having his face and neck chewed on, the owner says, “Come here, [doggo name], come here.” The owner doesn’t come running. He doesn’t even raise his voice. Cujo, who outweighs mine by about 40 lbs. or more, ignores him completely. I admit I was screaming by this time although I am not sure what I was yelling.
In case you don’t have a dog, there is this weird thing that happens between a leashed dog and an unleashed dog. I won’t even try to explain it, but I wasn’t going to drop my end of the bond that exists between me and Murray on walks. This put him at a distinct disadvantage, and in the future, I might do it differently.
Eventually the owner strolled over and took his dog. Didn’t speak to me. Didn’t apologize. Nothing.
I was shaken. I am not a huge dog person. This doesn’t mean I have anything against huge dogs, nor does it mean I am a tiny person. It means I was bitten early in life and have been nervous around all dogs until I got my own rescue dog, Perry. I became a dog person over night because he was the absolute best angel dog ever, who left this world far too soon at the age of nine. For Perry, I once got in the middle of a fight he was in. His ear got chewed as did my thumb for interfering. That time, I got involved without thinking.
Now, Murray is not an angel dog, but he is a good dog. **Mostly** He nearly always happily greets other dogs with a sniff and tail wag as they pass each other on leashes before it devolves into growling. But this… this was an attack. And I felt helpless as I watched it.
When it was over, when the owner had ambled over the ten yards to get Cujo, probably 30 to 45 long seconds later, we kept walking. I felt terrible for Murray, although he was definitely quicker to shake it off than I was. A man came after us — his dog was also off leash but stayed back. He was a visiting friend. He asked if I was ok, which I greatly appreciated. I was not ok. I was still terrified.
Months later, it’s my only stark memory of Tongue River besides catching a football game on TV and driving to the top of a hill to try to get cell service.
The attack made me do something I hadn’t done before: I ratted out the off-leash dog people to the park ranger. I also didn’t take the campsite near them that had been offered. We needed a buffer. I also glared a lot.
The ranger paid them a visit and said she’d spoken to them before. We have since learned that at the private campgrounds, you are more likely to get tossed out for infractions than at the state ones. Apparently, Cujo’s parents were allowed more than one warning.
It wasn’t an isolated incident. I cannot tell you how many times a dog has darted at us from between trailers or motorhomes. Anyway, that aside, we’ve also met a lot of wonderful dog owners, cat owners, horse owners, and the like. And I will try to refrain from a post about the irresponsibility of those who don’t pick up after their pooches even though every campground provides bags. Good bags, not like the biodegradable ones I keep in my pocket that start to degrade a bit early, allowing your finger to pass right through them.
But I will say that the problem is so pervasive the place we are currently staying has to employ someone to go into the dog park and pick up the doodly-doo every morning. And the manager is going to start a DNA program in the next few months. The dogs who live here will have their poops on record so the scofflaw owners can be found out and warned, fined, kicked out, or what have you. It shouldn’t come to that, and I won’t be here by then, but it’s a grand idea.
And this concludes my post because I have got to get out of the sun.