I walked a St. Bernard today at the Washington Animal Rescue League, a place at which I volunteer. I didn't know it when I started out, but this led to another test of my knee.
These dogs are huge, but sweet. This one in particular, who has been given the fitting name Stonewall, has tremendous strength. Don't let the photo at the right fool you. Here's another angle to show you how big he is.
But once I got him out to the park, he was ok. At one point, I got him running and playing with me. And let me just stop here and say if amusement parks really wanted to build a scary ride, they should forget about roller coasters. Instead, invent a ride where a 200 lb St. Bernard is running full-speed at you. It doesn't matter what you do, you're doomed.
But Stonewall is true to his breed's temperament. He doesn't have a mean bone in his body. He would get close to me, but veer away at the last second and gracefully blow right by me without so much as harming a hair on my leg. But at one point, I tried to be too clever and jump behind a bench, sort of like a matador pulling his muleta away from a bull at the last second. Unfortunately, that was the exact direction Stonewall was going. So he sort of hit my leg --my bad knee. Luckily, it wasn't planted at the time. But I stumbled and caught myself using that leg. It was a good test of whether the new ACL had healed into the bones. It had, and it held.
Whew.
Later, while taking Stonewall back inside, I had to hold back all 200 lbs of his brute strength while another volunteer was walking some dogs by. I don't think Stonewall really wanted to get to the dogs, but under those situations with dogs who don't know each other, you can't take any chances, especially since Stonewall could demolish the whole building if he set his mind to it. Yet again, my knee held. That's no small feat, considering that apparently a St. Bernard once pulled more than 4,000 pounds!
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