This pic was taken last fall, but it will give an idea of what I'm writing about. Our street is now a major construction site, with huge concrete pipes stacked on the parkway, deep ditches, heavy equipment et cetera and only a sandy trail where the paving usually is. The house on the right is on a corner. Yesterday I happened to look out of my eastern upstairs windows (my house is on the left) and saw a neighbor boy, about 13 or 14 maybe younger, leading a Basset hound up the cross street and turning to his left into my block. I have seen this lad before but wasn't sure if he lived in my block - if so, he usally walks a Bichon - or one of that boy's friends; I tend to believe (and hope) this was the latter. The Basset was on a retractable leash; at first I thought the kid was just having trouble getting the dog to negotiate the turn and didn't know much about using a retractable lead, as he kept yanking on it and then shortened it considerably. But when they had come around the corner and were in roadway about where the drive with the blue car is, the lad stopped again, yanked several times on the shortened lead - with the dog still standing and not appearing to be balking or anything. Then he started kicking at the dog's face - not hard, it didn't look like he was hurting the dog, but it did look pointless and peevish...
Without thinking about it, I rapped sharply on my window with my knuckles - you know, the classic reprimand gesture of old ladies and school marms
The boy looked up at the window, then immediately turned and led the dog back around the corner and down the cross street in the direction from which they had come... Now, I suspect that because I am one of the oldest residents and have one of the oldest houses and am not native to New Orleans and, while on friendly terms with neighbors I know, tend to keep to myself and also have on occasion made formal complaints re fireworks or other hazards, I may have something of a rep with the youngsters, as in, "... that's old lady B, don't fool with her!" Yet most of the kids are friendly - or at least polite - and it seems to me that if this kid didn't intend any harm to the dog, he would've just acknowledged my presence with a wave and continued on his course toward the other neighbor boy's house... ATM his actions looked to me like guilty "caught in the act" behavior...But then I thought, I had also had the idea that probably the Basset did not belong to this kid and he was only temporarily in charge of it.... which would not excuse real mistreatment of course, but might well have indicated he didn't know how to communicate with the dog and didn't mean any harm...
I would appreciate opinions on this. Was I out of line? Or more importantly which example of possibility does the described sequence look like to you?
