Lesson of the day - avoid small vicious dogs with arrogant owners
Today has to be one of my worst days in a very long time - what can be worse than having a hole bitten through your fairly new contract phone (2 months into the 18 month contract), having a dog tear a hole in your jeans, having to see your dog limp around in pain as well as attempting to talk sense to an arrogant, self-righteous creep who won’t accept any blame on his part?
That’s been my day, pretty much. In brief, I was walking my two dogs, Bingo (an 8 year old black and white border collie) and Tim (his 2 year old son) on a regular walk I do through a local woodland, when I saw 2 small dogs, probably terriers, running around in a field next to the wood. They were quick to notice me and my dogs and soon enough were coming up to them and sniffing them (as dogs do). Then things got violent and they began attacking each other. Tim was on his lead at the time and hence couldn’t actually escape from the terriers, who wasted no time attacking his underside and his private areas (ouch!)
Tim managed to get off the lead and run free whilst pursued by the vicious dogs. I was obviously a bit shocked at all of this (as you would be just expecting to have a leisurely Sunday stroll). The man in charge of the terriers seemed a bit “shifty” but told me that I should run back up through the wood where I’d probably meet Tim after he’d escaped the terriers. I thought nothing of it and ran up the hill. Shortly afterwards whilst I was walking around looking for Tim, I evaluated the damages I’d taken from the scrap. It was then that I noticed my 2 month old contract phone had a huge crack and teethmarks in the screen! Since I’m on an 18 month contract, then I was contemplating having to pay the remaining 16 months off @ £21/month while actually having no mobile phone to use!
I found the man again afterwards and made a few inquiries that legitimate, decent people would answer without hesitation:
“Can I have your name please?”
…”I don’t see why I should give my name to anyone”
“Do you have permission to be here?”
…”DO YOU have permission to be here?!”
In this part of the world, most people know each other and look out for each other - you usually don’t expect people to refuse to give their names after their dogs have just attacked yours and damaged your contract phone.
(Tim holding up his injured leg in pain)
We fortunately did manage to catch up with the man (me and my Dad raced after him in our Land Rover :D) - it appears he was part of a fox hunting party that the gamekeeper had arranged. He remained just as arrogant and self-righteous as ever, but thankfully the gamekeeper says he’ll try to see if he can get the aggressive terriers put down and will also reimburse me for the phone if I can’t claim on the insurance.
Things do work out in the end then - although it would have been better if it hadn’t happened at all. Next time you see any rough looking farmer/poacher sort of guy with a terrier, stay well away! You can never know what will happen next!
March 11th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Hopefully this day’s a little better for you :). Although it can seem somewhat surprising that two real small dogs could do that much damage, I’d figure your dogs could take them
(Hope none of them were seriously injured though).
Also, was your phone able to be freely repaired? Did it have a warranty? Is the plan still usable? etc.
March 11th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Unfortunately, it was not covered by the insurance policy (which we purposely took out when I started the contract). For some bizarre reason, I wasn’t mentioned as an “authorized user” on the insurance policy (my Dad being the owner of the policy), so the insurance company said they could do nothing about it
We bought a new Pay As You Go phone in my local city though today so I can still use the texts and minutes that came with the contract - it’s just a shame that the original phone can’t be replaced free of charge. The gamekeeper who’s land this was on says he may cover the cost of the phone (he is very generous) and said this guy wouldn’t be allowed onto the land again.
Dan