Distance Between Us
When I was a little kid, my paternal grandmother had two dogs, Tessa, a little ditsy Maltese, and Bindi, a Rhodesian Ridgeback. Tessa was too stupid to even realize that being mean was an option, so we always played with her when we visited my grandmother.
But Bindi was always locked away in the other half of the house. When asked about her, my mother would bristle and say, “Bindi doesn’t like kids”.
My mother had her reasons to be very fearful of dogs like Bindi as she had to put down her first dogs when I was born because they were seriously aggressive towards me.
Like they would launch themselves at the window if they saw me. The house operated under an airlock system for the first year and a half of my life; always two doors between me and the dogs.
After a while, my grandmother moved into the house directly behind ours and we put a gate between our shared fence. Suddenly Bindi was accessible.
We kept a respectful and fearful distance from her. For the most part. One day I was in my garden playing with my very patient Labrador KD and we were playing circus. This dog was amazing.
There wasn’t a single thing you could do to him to make him mad except being a horse as he hated horses. Bindi wandered into the yard and was watching us, so in a burst of foolishness, I ran towards her to try and involve her in the game.
She panicked and bit me. Not hard like I didn’t bleed or anything but I had some indents on my arm from her teeth and it did bruise a little.
I panicked and cried and sulked in my cubby house until I calmed down enough to go inside. I knew I couldn’t tell my mother because I would get in so much trouble for playing with Bindi.
The next day I was in the garden with KD and Bindi was there too but I ignored her. I studiously ignored her for weeks. She would come up and I would walk away.
Then some switch flicked. She was my adoring dog now. Everywhere I went she followed. This dog adored me. We would curl up on the sofa together and I couldn’t go a single step without her at my side.
I think she must have felt so guilty about that bite. She was my sweet dog and we were best friends for four more years until she passed.
My parents always remarked on this miraculous change in attitude from Bindi. How an old ornery dog who hated everyone was suddenly an oversized lapdog.
Even years after she passed they would marvel about it. I didn’t tell my mother until I was well into my twenties that the reason Bindi liked me was because she’d bitten me.
Story credit: Reddit / MoscaMye