Cul de Sac by Richard Thompson for September 23, 2015

She’s as black as the devil, so give her some deviled eggs.

Big Shirley is a sweetie-pie! Alice is letting her fear take over. Fear Is the Mind-Killer….

Poor Alice thinks she’s the treat!

We all know how it is to be forced into doing something we fear. It won’t be as bad as you are imagining, Alice.

@sisyphos is right about Big Shirley.But anyone with a dog knows how excited and “enthusiastic” they can get when people they haven’t seen for a while (like 5 minutes) show up. To a little kid, even a mid-sized dog can be intimidating when they’re wound up. The dog may or may not be bigger than the child, but is almost certainly stronger and easily capable of knocking the kid down. What they usually need is an adult to take the brunt of the dog’s initial rush, till Fido calms down and the kid can take it from there.

Stop reassuring Alice, Grandma!

Gulp.

Love the way Alice’s hair stands up at the thought of Shirley.

Our Daughter #1 was terrified by a great Dane that sniffed her when she was in a stroller at a laundromat. I got the owner to take the dog out, but dang if she didn’t bring it back later. After that, Daughter was afraid of dogs for years, till she met an arthritic, twenty-year-old Chihuahua. Now she lives with a small part Chihuahua and a large Australian shepherd.

I used to be the same way around my sister’s dog. It was a Great Dane. I get nervious around any dog but the fact including its ears it was almost as tall as me. Plus it did not like me one bit. I guess he was protective of my sister and her daughters…and since I was barely there….it saw me as a possible threat. so if I got near my sister or nieces he would growl and bark

:-D