A Walk Too Far

This is what I was planning:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=931+Washington+St,+Raleigh,+NC+27605&daddr=N+Person+St+to:Plainview+Ave+to:Dennis+Ave+to:Watkins+St+to:35.802813,-78.614838+to:Timber+Dr+to:N+Raleigh+Blvd+to:Brookside+Dr+to:931+Washington+St,+Raleigh,+NC+27605&hl=en&geocode=%3BFVceIgId3SJQ-w%3BFSdBIgIdx09Q-w%3BFZRHIgIddFRQ-w%3BFSA-IgIdAGlQ-w%3B%3BFWlYIgIdVHlQ-w%3BFYRTIgIdXolQ-w%3BFY8UIgIdkDlQ-w%3B&gl=us&mra=dpe&mrcr=0&mrsp=5&sz=16&via=1,2,3,4,5,6,8&dirflg=w&sll=35.80203,-78.613358&sspn=0.013731,0.027809&ie=UTF8&ll=35.798254,-78.627863&spn=0.027463,0.055618&z=15

This is what happened:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=931+Washington+St,+Raleigh,+NC+27605&daddr=N+Person+St+to:Clifton+St+to:Plainview+Ave+to:Dennis+Ave+to:Watkins+St+to:Watkins+St+to:Timber+Dr+to:35.802796,-78.608208+to:Marlborough+Rd+to:Chatham+Ln+to:Chatham+Ln+to:Milburnie+Rd+to:New+Bern+Ave+to:New+Bern+Ave+to:N+East+St+to:Oakwood+Ave+to:N+Person+St+to:931+Washington+St,+Raleigh,+NC+27605&hl=en&geocode=%3BFVceIgId3SJQ-w%3BFSo8IgIdtEBQ-w%3BFSdBIgIdx09Q-w%3BFZRHIgIddFRQ-w%3BFSA-IgIdAGlQ-w%3BFcNOIgIdrG5Q-w%3BFWlYIgIdVHlQ-w%3B%3BFUdKIgId-Z1Q-w%3BFcwjIgIdWbFQ-w%3BFfUTIgIdn7BQ-w%3BFYYUIgIdNnRQ-w%3BFZb1IQIdaHRQ-w%3BFVD1IQIdpl5Q-w%3BFdQHIgIdoStQ-w%3BFfIHIgIdrCFQ-w%3BFZYTIgIdNyJQ-w%3B&gl=us&mra=dme&mrcr=0,1&mrsp=8&sz=16&via=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17&dirflg=w&sll=35.79888,-78.609602&sspn=0.013766,0.027809&ie=UTF8&ll=35.794564,-78.617048&spn=0.055069,0.111237&z=14

This is why:

Just after crossing Robin Hood Drive on Watkins, I see in my peripheral vision--mostly peripheral hearing, actually--a dog come over from the house on the right. After coming by me, the dog started running ahead of me and looking back at me, and I figured it was using me as an excuse to walk himself around the neighborhood, so I ignored him. Then I heard "Chief! Chief!" from a voice that could have been a child's or a petite woman's. At first I didn't turn around--this was between her (I was fairly certain it was a her) and the dog. After the dog had peed on several neighbors' bushes and appeared unlikely to heed the woman/child voice, and as I felt partially responsible for enabling the dog's flight, I turned around the address Chief's apparent owner. A petite woman, and cute at that. Good, I thought. A reason to involve myself.

Chief kept a margin of one or two street addresses ahead of cute woman, and I could tell from her look of anxiety that this was not a simple repeat of most Sunday afternoons. "Do you need help?" I asked. Her response left open a lot of room for interpretation: "I'm just trying to catch him." Ok, I thought. Not like I have anywhere else to be. So we both took off after the dog, her barefoot and calling out "Chief! Chief!" every few steps, alternating between running and walking, me trying to jog after the dog without looking too strangery lest it try to dodge me out of fear.

At Timber Drive, we got our first real opportunity to outsmart Chief. He ran to the right behind some houses and managed to get himself into a fenced dog lot with another dog. Barefoot Woman ran back there to get him--I was a little too concerned with prowling around other folks' backyards--and it looked to me like Chief was going to get cornered. I don't know what happened back there, but I do know that Chief came running out to my left, and despite my best efforts to position myself to scare him back towards Barefoot Woman, he got ahead of me and headed for Crabtree Boulevard. This is about where I started to lose track of where I was, though amazingly I was still following the "intended" path for the walk. This is also where I started to realize that, though this woman had no chance of catching Chief without some external intervention, I was definitely not helping the situation. I almost caught him, or rather cornered him, while he took a quick dump on the lawn of the office building at Timber and Crabtree, but fearing tackling a strange dog with poop hanging off his behind, I kept enough distance to let him run down Crabtree, crossing it twice as I tried to wave down oncoming vehicles to beware of dog.

At this point I verbalized my worry to my barefoot partner that I was perhaps causing more trouble than I was helping, to which she assented with a "maybe" as she started jogging again. "But we have to catch him in there [behind the guardrail of North Raleigh Boulevard] right now!" Chief was having none of it. He must have known that he had passed "bad dog" threshold a few blocks back, so he was going on a walkie HIS way before the inevitable incarceration. Naturally that meant crossing a major roadway against the light, with me following. Barefoot Woman waited for the light to change. Chief led us into the Capital Area Greenway, a bike path around the northern half of the city I "discovered" on my last walk. Chief smartly stayed about twenty feet or more ahead of us, sniffing and peeing as he went. At this point, Barefoot Woman acknowledged that my running after him was just propelling him away faster, so I decided the run was over and walked briskly instead. She continued to jog, as did Chief (which is to say, no, it was not just me being a stanger... this dog was in full-bore piss-off-my-owner mode).

About a quarter mile into the trail, Chief stopped and held back as a group of walkers and a bicyclist came at him from the other direction. The bicyclist in particular had aroused his concern. Barefoot Woman continued running after him and calling out "Chief! Chief!" I would have suspected that anyone with a brain could tell that the dog was a runaway, but this turd on his bike, as he rode by, said "That dog should be on a leash, you know." First of all, go fuck yourself! Second of all, no shit! Third of all, I'm about 100 feet back from all this... what makes you think I'm involved? Sadly, all I could get out of my face as he rode by was "Yes, I know." Not especially biting of a response.

Finally, at about a half mile in--I'm basically out of view of Chief and Barefoot Woman now--I hear voices up ahead and laughing. As I approach, I realize that the only thing that could stop Chief was his interest in other dogs, three of which were being walked on the trail. Barefoot Woman was able to grab his collar, and the nice folks walking the dogs gave her one of their leashes (apparently their dogs were slightly more trustworthy). I helped stabilize Chief as he was linked to the leash, and was looking for a good moment to interject, "not bad for being barefoot," a line I had been crafting since back at Timber Drive. By this point, though, Barefoot Woman had spent about twenty minutes doing something that should have taken two, and she looked eager to get back to Watkins Street. I wished her luck as she tore Chief away from his new friends, and she never turned back to see I kept on walking the path in the opposite direction. Of course, had I any idea where I was (which was still relatively close to my planned route) I would have followed her and gotten back to North Raleigh Boulevard. Instead, I ended up with a three-mile detour through the bad part of town.

And that's why.