Islands and feeling safe #3

Sparkly life is well and defusing threats on Pender Island

With islands, when the only way in and out from a place is by ferry, boat or plane, it’s tempting to think that bad guys might not be quite so prevalent. I admit that I’ve been scared here a couple of times on Pender. Once it was a man coming up a gated forest access road as I was coming down. How long does it take to identify someone as a threat? Two seconds? You can see a person’s energy from a long way away from the she or he way moves, and this guy’s was scary. He was military or ex-military I figured, possibly a hunter. He was angry. PTSD? In his forties. Fit. Tall.

It was unusual to see anyone but a local on this road; it wasn’t on any map of trails, though it led to a network of them. I had never before felt this road was isolated but I did then. There was no one for miles. My car was just down at the bottom of the hill. I couldn’t deke off and just disappear. A) It was thick brush there and B) By the time the man appeared around a corner, we were way too close. Forty feet and closing fast.

Living with dogs over many years, I’ve learned to be sensitive to body language. So I modified my body language. However I’d been walking before, I made it brisker, more confident. I called Kira to me. Sometimes when I say, Come, she just looks at me, Why? Fortunately, on this occasion, Kira hustled over like she was in obedience class. I clipped on her leash, and put her between me and the guy. Inserting the seventy-eight pound dog between us was saying, This is my defence.

I didn’t engage in eye contact which could have been taken as a challenge, but in the way I was walking, I was doing my best to convey that I wouldn’t go down easily. The idea of someone my vintage being tough may seem laughable, but years ago, police in New York did a study of who was mugged and who wasn’t. They found they were able to predict attacks with a high degree of accuracy just from the body language. Being meek did not serve anyone well. I was doing my best to look don’t-mess-with-me and capable.

However, I was concerned that Kira had not read the memo that she was now my Personal Protection Dog. You can buy PPDs online or get training for your own dog. Personal Protection Dogs are often German Shepherds or Dobermans, guard dogs trained to respond aggressively to anyone who threatens their person. I knew dogs picked up energy and were supposed to sense a bad guy. But this people-loving Goldendoodle?

It took no time and all time when I was moving quickly toward someone who was walking uphill toward me on a rough water-carved roadbed, me in the right-hand rut going down, Kira between us in the grassy middle, the guy to my left hand. When we were almost level, sure enough, Kira’s nose turned toward the man. She was telling me she wanted to say hi.

I kept barrelling ahead and twitched the leash, giving her the cue no stopping.

In my peripheral vision, I could see the man, right beside us now, grimace at me. He huffed out air through his nose. I’ve never heard anyone make a sound like that. The harsh brief exhale was a contemptuous response to let me know he knew exactly what I’d been doing.

Then we were past.

Whew. I thought, Whoever you are, few people would have noticed those small defensive actions I took with the dog. I thought again the man had a military background. He’d been trained to watch body language. The face he pulled and that hard out-breath through the nose, he was a scary guy.  

When we were a safe distance away, almost at the car, I gave Kira a couple of huge treats for her quick obedience.

On a gentle note, here’s a true tale about Pender crime that I cherish. This is more the inspiration I draw on for my Jorrie series, set on the fictional and magical Satter Island.

Some ten years ago, a fire truck was stolen from one of the fire stations on Pender. The key had been left in the ignition. The individual who took the truck drove to the ferry terminal where the ferry worker on duty looked at the fire truck, nodded to the driver. “Lane two,” she said and waved the truck through. For those of you not from the area, vehicles coming from Victoria on Vancouver Island pay to get here, but they don’t have to pay to leave the island.

The ferry employee called the fire station. “You sending a truck to Victoria?” she asked. “Only I don’t recognize the driver.” She also knew that anyone driving a fire truck would almost certainly be smartly turned out in uniform and this person wasn’t. Our volunteers train like crazy and take a lot of pride in what they do. The call from the ferry worker was the first anyone at the fire station knew their truck was missing. A few minutes later, when the RCMP cruiser rolled up to the ferry terminal at Otter Bay, there was the stolen fire truck, quietly waiting in the lineup.

It’s tempting to think that the thief was as thick as a brick. Really, a person would just drive off with a fire truck? Even if he managed to get off the island, what would he do with it? But the addition I heard to the story later made a lot more sense. It turned out the individual had mental health issues and had been about to be cut off his monthly government disability payment. By stealing the truck, he proved that he still had a mental health challenge! The truck was returned unharmed and his disability payment was reinstated. It’s possible the fire chief might’ve had words with whoever left the key in the ignition, but that’s a whole other story.