My Dog Had a Chance Encounter With Our Childhood Bully

I ran my hands over the smooth, cool surface of the brown oak table and looked across at my grandfather.

He was in his seventies, with silver hair still thick and full. I was just a kid back then, without a care or clue in the world—and perfectly content that way.

He leaned back in his chair, seeming deep in thought, and said, “It’s a shame. I can remember so much from fifty years ago. But I can’t recall what happened this morning.”

Something about that stuck with me—and has increasingly become true. When I close my eyes and look back at my life, I see a mix of milestone moments and oddly inane memories, all strung together in the blur of time. I remember my routine, lifestyle, and the people in my life, but I can’t pinpoint what happened on a day-to-day basis.

Yet, those I can recall — especially those from my childhood — I seem to have the whole movie of everything that happened. Everyone has a childhood bully story — this one is mine.

How he arrived

I spent my summers on sun-soaked Merritt Island, Florida, long before the state became a political punchline. The days stretched out slowly. Each evening the sky turned a brilliant shade of orange as night settled in.

My most nostalgic memories come from those rainy afternoons with my grandparents. This was in the 80s and 90s, when neighborhoods still felt safe. We roamed freely, wild and unsupervised, doing what kids do best—getting into trouble, roughhousing, and dragging mud through the house while our grandmothers scolded us in a flurry of panic.

My grandfather worked for NASA as an engineer, as my best friend Ryan’s dad did. They lived only two blocks away. We often darted back and forth between each other’s houses. Sleepovers were common. We were both easygoing and fun-spirited kids. The neighborhood was pocked with several boys of ill repute.

Many people misunderstand bullies as these invading forces. Quite often, they are your friend to some extent — until something changes.

This was the case with Jayson. He was 14, and we were 10, making him sizeably larger. There weren’t many kids in the neighborhood who were his age, so I think he got bored and hung out with us. He was full of adolescent angst and aggression.

And though I can’t say for sure what drove it, Yale researchers found that bullying tends to originate with one of three things: trouble at home, trouble learning, or callousness (a lack of empathy). That same lack of development often shows up in brain scans—areas tied to empathy noticeably lagging behind. Strangely enough, the absence of social awareness is something both bullies and their victims often share.

There was nothing glaring with Jayson. He did have a much older father, who was in his 70s and prone to a strange obsession with toy trains, turning the entire house into a train station.

The truce that fell through

Our mutual friendship with Jayson started out great. Then things deteriorated. He started playing rough with one of us, yanking a video game controller out of our hands or pushing or tripping us for no reason in the front yard, and then laughed about it.

Our names were swapped out for new labels: idiot, stupid, moron. It wasn’t funny anymore, and it certainly wasn’t cute. So we started avoiding him as best we could. We even found ourselves hiding in bushes whenever we spotted him riding up on his bike.

A few months into Jayson’s reign of terror, something happened that stuck with me. Ryan and I were playing catch on my front lawn when Jayson, the giant, showed up. He walked right over to Ryan, who was quiet, nerdy, and had a good sense of humor.

Jayson was pissed off and towering over Ryan. With no reasonable provocation, Jayson pointed down at him and, in an aggressive voice, said, “I’m going to give you four options:

A) I punch you in the face.

B) I kick you in the crotch.

C) I kick you in the shins.

D) I peg you with this baseball.”

Ryan scratched his chin and said, “Hmm — well, any chance for an option E?” Jayson answered Ryan’s question by kicking him in the shins.

The reckoning that came

Ryan and I were playing on the side of my grandfather’s house. We were building a makeshift treehouse. The project was prohibitively dangerous and in need of supervision.

Jayson appeared out of nowhere. Ryan and I both groaned a bit. It’s weird how bullies go out of their way to spend time with people they hate. If you don’t like the person, why bother?

“Hey stupid. I want to pet your dog,” he said, gesturing to our 120 lb Gordon Setter, Trapper, milling around behind us.

He was typically a nice dog and not too aggressive. But he had a ton of energy and was strong as an ox. Gordon Setters are a hunting breed and are meant to run for hours and hours.

Jayson insisted on petting him. Begrudgingly, I led Jayson to Trapper, who was on a long leash in the front yard. Trapper had sensitive ears. I told Jayson, “Be careful with his…”

“Shut up I know how to pet a dog,” Jayson interjected.

And what did Jayson do? He held up Trapper’s long right ear and said, “Man, that is one ugly dog. Look at this long ea — ”

Trapper exploded and unleashed a bunch of deep booming barks. Then, he jumped on Jayson. As Jayson fell backward, Trapper’s paws raked down Jayson’s forearms, leaving red lines — that stopped just short of bleeding.

I moved forward, “Get down, Trapper!”

Jayson looked down at these lines and his face turned into that of a small baby. He let out a wail. He turned and bolted, running home crying. Ryan and I looked at each other in total awe of what had just happened.

We never saw Jayson again after that day. My unruly dog, which was a pain in the neck for twelve years, ushered the exit of a bully from my life.

It made all the chores and cleaning up I had to do for him, totally worth it on that act alone. My dog had given a tough bully some bad PR. I often wonder if some part of the dog understood Jayson’s comments about him being ugly.

It’s perhaps even more likely that the dog detected a bad person in our presence. Dogs do have an amazing sense with people, and when bad juju is in our presence. Regardless, Jayson survived. And we moved on with our summer, free from a bully’s malevolent presence.