I was busy surveying and noted the two large dogs inside their fenced yard. They looked exceptionally strong and healthy. They barked a couple of times but generally ignored me even when I was digging by the fence corner. Next door, in his yard, was a Chihuahua. He takes a leak near the two large dogs, turns around, and proceeds to kick dirt at them. Quite the brave little guy, in his own yard. That was the highlight of that mundane survey.
Dogs are great company when you're surveying solo! I was doing a lot survey one time, and there was a Siberian Husky in the fenced yard. I was a little anxious to enter the yard, but he turned out to be a very friendly dog. On the other hand, me and the guys entered a fenced yard one time with no dog in sight. After about a minute, a Doberman appeared. Never thought I could hurdle a fence so quickly!
One time I was set up near a pasture with two horses. They kept wanting to know what I was doing. One of them kept nibbling on the back of my head and kept looking over my shoulder. Fortunately, neither one were biters so I let them be curious. They were nice company while standing there at the instrument. [The instrument was out of their reach but I was not]
Just a couple weeks ago I was doing a survey on a house being worked on. No body was there except a carpenter and no sign of anybody really living there full time. I was happy to see no one there to bother us so I opened the gate and walked to the backyard down a narrow path on the side of the house. I turned the corner and there he was, a full grown English Mastiff! I turned around and ran before I even knew I was running. I got to the gate about the same time as the dog and he turned out to be a relatively friendly dog, thank goodness because I was still fumbling with closing the gate while he stood there not a foot from me. The carpenter came out because he saw me through a window high tailing it with the dog in chase and called the house manager, who showed up about 10 minutes later. Turns out the dog is friendly but just likes to jump up on people and most folks don't enjoy a 175 lb dog jumping on them, so he stays outside when people are there. No body told me! 🙂
I have generally been lucky with dogs, but there was this one time...
Doing a septic topo up in the hills at the end of a windy road that was a dead end road with a few trailers connected to each other and what looked like a truck farm, these two HUGE ugly and mean as sin dogs proceeded to hunt us.
One was approaching from the front and bearing teeth/growling, and the other swung a huge left and circled up from behind. We packed up as briskly as possible and retreated to the truck.
We left with our tails between our legs. I don't think I ever went back.
