Lets Shoot all the Volunteers!

Today six of the 4-H kids and two of the adult parents had the privilege of working with a local agency in town to perform community service. Meg, Jo, Beth and I were part of this group. We were joined by Mrs. D, her sons Z. and T. and another boy from the group T2. We were given the job of visiting the homes of some local elderly individuals and picking up bags of leaves that needed to be taken to the dump.

At house one there were no bags. No one answered the door. We called the phone number on the information paper we were given. We were then told by the caregiver that WE were supposed to rake the leaves, bag them and then take them to the dump! No one had told us that! We didn't have the right materials! But we wanted to do a good job so we took the some garbage bags and began to pick up leaves. The two rakes we had were garden rakes, not leaf rakes. We plowed on to the best of our ability and got most of the leaves out of the front and back yard. We also got the pile of old roof shingles loaded into the trailer. Expecting the next houses to go more smoothly we loaded into the van and traveled to house two.

At house two we found the expected pile of black bags with leaves. Except that these bags had been sitting there since 2006! As the kids tried to lift the bags they disintegrated leaving behind this rich black compost. I really think the best thing we could have done was to just put it into the lady's garden. But that's not what we were supposed to be doing. So we found some more garbage bags and scooped the dirt and loaded it into the trailer. Then we got to sweep up the big mess we made on the driveway. Not what we expected, but not too bad.

At house three we were met by a wonderful pile of black bags that loaded easily into the trailer. We were on a role! The trailer was full so we drove out to the dump and deposited our load. Then we took the kids to lunch. Hungry workers are not happy workers and this was getting to be a very full morning.

After a delightful meal we were energetic and enthusiastically proceeded to house four. Now we knew that house four did not have garbage bags to pick up. They had cut downs some trees and we were going to be picking up tree limbs. When we took the kids into the backyard we were a little worried. The nicely stacked and cut tree limbs we were TOLD were waiting to be picked up were actually all over the yard. Right were they had fallen when they were chopped down. Oh well, we will rise to the occasion! That's when the dog across the ally decided to make his presence known. He was a good size black lab. He had been barking constantly at us but since he was on the OTHER side of the fence we were not concerned. Well he felt we were not paying close enough attention to his verbal warnings to leave so he pushed his way under the fence and came tearing into the yard. He then began to stalk the kids as they were picking up the sticks. His hackles were up, his sharp white teeth were bared and he was doing his best to let us know we were on his territory and it was time to leave.

This is a good time to review my wonderful Dog Whisperer information with the kids, I decided. I told the kids to be calm and assertive, to ignore the dog and continue with their work. They were not to look at the dog (challenging it) nor were they to run away from it. Just keep working. I must say the kids did and excellent job of following the directions. However, Beth, Jo and Z are small enough that they were not very intimidating. The dog began to target them rushing up on them when they were bent over to pick up sticks and chasing them as they walked the wood to the trailer. I felt like this was too unsafe for them and had them get into the van and wait. (These ones are all under the age of 10 and probably don't weigh 100lbs as a combined group.)

The older kids continued working. Mrs. D went into the house and told the family that because of the dog, we did not feel this was a safe environment for the kids and that we were going to go. Another group would return and finish at a later date. The family did not like this idea and sent the high school age granddaughter out to deal with the dog. She got a garden hoe and began to chase the dog yelling and swinging. The dog got more wound up and began running around the yard dodging her, barking, growling and snapping away. This was not working out the way I had hopped. Then the gentleman whose house we were at came out with his gun. He proceeded to try to shoot the dog.

Now I don't know ANYTHING about guns. I've never shot a gun in my life. But there are some safety rules that I thought applied to gun use. For example, I thought you were never supposed to point a gun at another person unless you intended to use it on that person. At archery we have a rule that no one even puts their arrow on the string until after everyone is on the same side of the shooting line and away from the target. I was standing less then two feet from the dog. All of the kids were standing between me and the man and he was shooting AT THE DOG THROUGH A GROUP OF VOLUNTEERS! I stood there slightly shocked staring down the barrel of the gun thinking "This is insane, this isn't happening, he's not really shooting that thing!" but he was.

After four shots he finally hit the dog which went back to its side of the fence. None of the kids had been hurt. But I was MAD! Of all the dumb, idiotic, dangerous, stupid, .......(help me out, I need some more words) things to do! He went back into the house. I am positive he never even thought about what he had just done.

Yes, we did fill the trailer up with the sticks of wood. When the trailer was completely full we took it to the dump. You couldn't even tell we had done any work there were so many sticks left! We did report the incident. I can promise you this group of volunteers will not be returning to that home.

Maybe I'm crazy but I just don't think volunteers like getting shot at!