November 11 , 2006 :: A walk in the park, and Bella's Near Demise

Bella's Bridge Holly standing on the bridge for scale

November 11, 2006, was a beautiful day. At 7:30 a.m., I picked up Holly from her work trip, where she'd been in California for a week. Since we decided to spend the day outside D.C., I brought Bella along for a day of fun. After all, it was a warm, seventy degree, November Saturday. Little did we know that it might be Bella's last day on Earth.

We went west and saw the Manassas National Battlefield Park, which looked like a nice place to take a long walk and recharge. So, we stopped, paid $6 admission to the park, and started walking. One of the landmarks of this park is the stone bridge. This bridge would be the landmark of our day, too.

The Stone Bridge at Masassas National Battlefield Park Note the low walls from the walk

Made of stone, it's a high bridge, but it's walls on the bridge are somewhat low while walking on top of the bridge. In fact, they resemble a lower version of the stone retaining walls on our daily walk around Chevy Chase, DC. Over the past couple weeks, Bella has taken to jumping up onto these retaining walls and trying to chase squirrels, one of her obsessions. While I've been trying very hard to dissuade this behavior, my corrections have not been working. I would regret that.

While on the bridge, and before I could react, Bella hopped up onto the side of the bridge and over the side. I gasped. I jumped to the side to see if she was still on the leash. At some point I loudly blurted an expletive. An extreme sense of urgency overwhelmed me, and it was hard to tell if I was holding her weight. I felt much adrenaline flowing at this point.

Dangling from her harness over a bridge The small child should show scale

She was dangling by her harness and leash, some 15-20 feet over the rocks and stream. We'd never been there before and didn't know how deep the stream was. She looked... concerned... no, almost panicked as she swung over the bridge by the leather leash like a clocks pendulum. I've seen her wiggle out of this harness in the past, and it looked like that was going to happen any instant. I considered letting her fall into the water below, but not knowing how deep it was, I quickly thought in a flash that the best thing was to try to get her back up.

I started pulling the leash, and since I always kept it double twisted around my wrist, there was no chance of my loosing the leash. I saw the harness high on her shoulders as she hung there. As I got her high enough to grab her harness's handle, she started using her feet against the rock to attempt scrambling up the vertical rock wall. I held the harness high into her armpits to keep her from falling out of the harness. It was all working. By now, Holly had enough vantage to help pull Bella's butt as Bella got up and over the top of the wall. I pulled Bella off the wall and put her down on her feet on solid ground. She stood there, wide eyed and panting. My adrenaline dump was so intense that my hands and legs were shaking uncontrollably. Bella continued to breathe fast and deliberately like she almost died. She had, in fact, almost died. It was all extremely harrowing.

We continued our walk

We walked from 10am until around noon, when we got back to the car. We spent the rest of the day out. Later in the evening, we went scrambling around the large rocks and hills at the Potomac Rover around the Chain Bridge. She goes up rocks really well.

I wonder why she decided to "end it all" today. Luckily she changed her mind. Luckily I read a book about hiking with dogs years ago when I thought that I would take Athaena. Luckily I read the chapter about how helpful harnesses can be when hiking with dogs, as they allow a pet owner to help a pet out of bad situations. Had the leash been attached to the collar she was wearing, she would have fallen to her doom, or broken her neck. It was Shadow's old harness she was wearing, so thank you Shadow, too!

Whew! She's sleeping now behind my chair as I write. She's dreaming quite a bit, barking, panting, and running in her sleep. I have to sigh and think, "crazy dog."

From Bella's Bridge Incident Album