A harrowing dog attack in Cayucos

June 14, 2022

Editor’s Note: The following series, “Life in Radically Gentrifying Cayucos by the Sea,” to be posted biweekly includes the notes, thoughts, and opinions of an original American voice: author Dell Franklin. 

Franklin’s memoir, “Life On The Mississippi, 1969,” is currently on Amazon.

By DELL FRANKLIN

My brown Lab, Wilbur, who is 90 pounds and officially 15 ½ years old, and limps badly from a wobbly hind leg supported by doses of CBD, was attacked viciously and violently the other morning along the seawall.

This doesn’t happen in Cayucos. This is not supposed to happen in Cayucos, which is dog heaven for residents and visitors alike. But it happened, and when it did I felt immediately plunged into a war zone, an incomprehensible out-of-control chaos that horrified me to the core.

Holding onto my leash, I watched a black dog of no more than 50 pounds leap from beside its owner’s side over the wall and come at Wilbur, fangs bared, eyes wild, and attack him.

Wilbur, who was abandoned in Los Angeles and spent months on the streets. as well as four months in a Lab rehab down south, is a rescue (and a warrior who has subdued attacking dogs before without harming them), immediately defended himself, except that his back legs collapsed so that he had no leverage, and the black dog’s jaws caught him by the snout and began biting down viciously.

This was when I began screaming at the man who had been sitting beside his dog to get his ass in gear, and he began trying to separate the jaws of his dog from my dog’s snout, with no success. By this time, two of my seawall friends, Anthony and Mark, were screaming at the guy, who began punching the side of his dog’s head.

This went on and on, and on, all of us screaming.

Had I owned a gun, which I don’t, I would have shot the dog, as by this time Wilbur had flopped down on his side like a lifeless hulk, utterly silent but realizing he was in an impossible situation. I cannot express what lacerates you emotionally as you watch your old, defenseless dog experience this punishment, this violence.

By this time, I was possibly threatening to dismember the owner of this dog and on the verge of stepping aside and kicking the black dog in the ribs as hard as possible when there was finally separation—perhaps a full minute after the attack.

Wilbur lay on his side, quiet, completely still, surprisingly calm while I blistered the owner who pulled his dog away and went over the seawall without stopping to observe the possible damage to Wilbur’s face. I blistered him with profanity, told him to “put his dog down before it killed a smaller dog,” that he was lucky Wilbur’s a warrior, and to get the fuck off the beach and out of my sight, and that he was lucky I was almost 80 and not 20 years younger.

Fortunately, Wilbur’s nose and eyes were unmarked, and evidently the dog had him by the cheek. He was still on his leash and after checking him out, as did my friends and several onlookers, I nudged him up to his feet and he acted as if absolutely nothing had happened while everybody petted him and told him what a brave guy he was, etc. etc.

All the way home and up the slight hill, he limped and wobbled along, and I gave him treats along the way. His cheek was swelling and tender to the touch. I got him home and swabbed the cheek with alcohol and gave him some CBD.

Later that night, the cheek swelled up more. I heard him whimpering on his roost, so I wrapped an Ibuprofen pill in peanut butter and he ate it and went to sleep and awakened the next morning ready to eat and visit Lowell, the handy man at the Shoreline Motel, for the first round of treats awaiting him as he made his way to the seawall, where his friends would be awaiting him with still more treats.

He was just fine.

The attack wasn’t personal with him, but it was with me.