My dad owns his own business installing carpet in people’s houses. He needs my help a lot of times with big jobs that have really heavy carpet. As he is 55 years old, he cannot be super hard on his body. He pays me well most of the time so I tend to enjoy working with him, even though it is really hard work.

One job site, in particular, was about 45 minutes away from Park Rapids so we had time to talk on the way there. While we were driving he told me, “The guy that owns this house has pretty vicious dogs, but he told me that he locked them up in a room we don’t have to go into.” I didn’t think much of this, because I’ve never actually been around a really mean dog.

The guy that owned the house was supposed to be home when we got there to let us in. We assumed he was inside because there were four trucks parked outside the house. My dad and I walked up to the door with our toolboxes and knocked on the door. No one answered so we knocked again. The two dogs inside went absolutely nuts. They were barking as loud as possible. The knocking and barking routine was repeated about three more times and still, no one came to the door. My dad called the homeowner to find out where he was, but he didn’t answer his phone. “That’s great,” I muttered under my breath.

We decided to try to walking in the house to start working on the job. As soon as we entered, I saw two big black dogs in huge kennels. The dogs started going crazy, but the kennels looked pretty sturdy so I didn’t feel too worried at first.

One dog was right next to the staircase we had to use in order to do our work. The other caged dog was across the living room and seemed to be a bit tamer, although he still appeared angry. My dad and I looked at each other. “What type of person would train dogs like this?” he asked out loud.

As we brought the carpet down the stairs, the dog closest to the stairway went insane. He was basically bursting my ear drum from barking so loudly. I could feel the dog’s saliva hitting me in the face as I walked down the stairs; the only thing between was the black wire of the kennel.

We finally got all the carpet downstairs along with our tools to install it. I got to work aligning the seams together. All of a sudden, I heard a rapid patter of footsteps. This was also the same time that the dogs quit barking. A dog had gotten out of its kennel. My dad and I both picked up a piece of wood to defend ourselves. Wryly, I thought, This is the best day of my life.

I certainly wasn’t getting paid enough to fight off angry dogs in order to install some carpet, but the next thing I saw was a large dog staring into my eyes from the top of the staircase. I started to yell. “Get! Get out of here!” My dad was yelling too, and we managed to chase the dog out of the house. Somehow, we made our way back to our truck and got in. My dad called the owner of the house again. We figured that if he didn’t answer again, we would leave. The job wasn’t worth getting attacked by a dog.

The man answered the phone this time and came home. The guy had the audacity to be mad at us for letting his dog out when it was about to attack us. I was a little bit skeptical of working in the house again, but the dogs were supposedly locked up securely this time. I hurried through my work so we could leave as soon as possible. I always liked dogs and didn’t think twice about whether they were good or not. This experience changed my
perspective.