Am I the only one concerned for my safety when walking in a remote area alone?
Yesterday Yannick and I enjoyed an incredibly rare moment in time where we blocked off a good chunk of it smack dab in the middle of the day to treat ourselves to a date. We had been gifted a spa credit for a couples massage from our kids for Christmas, and finally got around to using it. It was glorious. Some of the best treatments we’ve ever had. If you’re in Toronto and want to splurge and really treat yourself I highly recommend you have lunch at Cafe Boulud and then a massage at the Four Seasons in Yorkville. It’s well worth the hit your bank account will take. Throughout our entire time I kept thinking about how incredibly thankful I was for the opportunity to spend some time like that with my husband, as well as being thankful for having the means, the time along with the human being that I love beyond compare to have that experience with. It was truly one of my favorite date days in a very long while.
After the spa we didn’t want our leisurely time to end there, we both wanted to get outside, the sun was shining, the leaves were rustling and we have two dogs that love romping through the ravine. So off we went, dogs in tow for a little early evening walk.
This is where we encountered so many off leash dogs that I mentioned in my post yesterday. For the most part the dogs off their leashes were very well mannered, and didn’t approach our on leash guys, but, there were a couple who did the “walk by then turn back around and take a sniff at their backsides” move that makes Kohl jump. I really wish dogs wouldn’t do this, or that owners wouldn’t allow them to, but c’est le vie everybody thinks they have that dog that won’t cause a fight. And maybe your dog won’t but, you’re seriously taking for granted that mine won’t either. You don’t know my dog, I do, which is why my guy is on his leash. But whatever, like I mentioned yesterday, I just hope it never comes down to Kohl being attacked while on leash and muzzled up, cuz that would be ugly and unjust on every level.
The thing that struck me as interesting about our hike wasn’t all the dogs off their leashes, I’m used to seeing that in Toronto. What I found most upsetting during our walk was a gut reaction I had to seeing three young men, maybe in their mid-twenties entering the ravine while we were walking out of it; one had a back pack and the other two didn’t. My thought as I walked past them was; “Wow, I’m really glad I’m here with my husband, and that I have one big dog with me for my safety.”
Isn’t that odd? Or rather isn’t that sad that as a woman that was my thought when I encountered three young men, with not a dog between entering a ravine at dusk. The fact that my instinct to that scenario was fear bothered me. I said out loud to YB how sad I found that as a woman that would be my first thought. I asked him as a man did he also think anything like that when he saw them. He said no, he didn’t experience a fearful thought, rather, his mind immediately went to sizing up the biggest guy, and planning his defense strategy, which always, for both of us involves first letting Kohl off leash and using both him, and his leash as a weapon.
Strange days we live in aren’t they? I mean I suppose not everybody thinks like this, surely the young woman running through the ravine with her headset in, with her very strong, capable pit bull cross off leash running along side her, hadn’t given any thought to a possible attack by three men. Nor did the lovely Scottish grandma we came across in there with her grandson enjoying nature together. So I guess it was just me and Yannick thinking this way, which got me thinking; what came first, the chicken or the egg? Is it because I’ve been attacked so many times in my life that I fear it and recognize it as something that might happen? And does Yannick feel the same because he knows my history? Or is it because of what feels like escalating random acts of violence that we hear about more and more that make us think this way? Are we products of our pasts? Or products of our society?? This my friends is something that really makes me go “hmmm…” what about you? What are your thoughts on this?
