Quote:
Originally Posted by lizzymahoney
Pepperoncini perked up when she saw our bike and a strange kid. The kid dropped the bike in the middle of the circle and ran into their open garage. It really pissed me off that a ten or twelve year old kid did not know how to behave safely around a dog.... She could have killed that kid if she was just any dog. My biggest problem there is lack of personal responsibility on the part of the parents raising that kid.
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I'm not sure I get the the whole story here.
When you say
perked up I assume you mean barking, or looking threatening in some way?
In which case I can't see how the child is at fault. A dog he doesn't know acted in a way he didn't expect and he ran to the nearest available refuge?
If dogs kill people for doing this, then I submit it is the dog owner's fault for not controlling their incredibly dangerous animals. I appreciate your dog isn't dangerous, but the boy did not know this.
Also I can't see how the parents could be at fault. I was certainly never taught not to run from a barking dog. It never came up. Which is why I'm questioning this now in case I got the wrong end of the stick.
Anyway, back to the OT. I think people here have nailed it already RK - the people in question were surprised by what they saw. There's a number of factors that would be unusual, especially taken together - the motorised chair, your age, your appearance (shaved head, natty dress, apparent health) the fact you were behaving like a "normal" person - conversing, having a drink (as opposed to someone parked in the corner, dribbling).
I have to admit it's hard for me to relate. I grew up close to a hospital that specialised in spinal injuries - people came from all over the UK (and even the world) for treatment. At least once a year we had visits at school from people in wheelchairs. I remember a young woman who was a victim of drink driving - who read us some rather bad poetry, and a guy who was on the Olympic basketball team with bright red hair (a classmate asked him cheekily if the other guys picked on him for being ginger). I think it was intended as social integration. The town would be inundated with wheelchair athletes for the Games every year - we were more interested in hearing real American, Australian etc accents than we were phased by the chairs.