Learning to ride her bike this summer was one of the big accomplishments for my seven year old daughter, Lexi. She began with riding around in the driveway and eventually moved to the streets of our neighborhood…with our supervision, of course. A couple days ago, both her and my son went riding together on the next street over from us, but I could still see them from the backyard of our house. Lexi was enjoying her leisurely ride until a very poofy white dog, who was not on a leash, came running after her. Lexi is not scared of that much, but loose dogs (big or small) freak her out! Instead of pedaling faster to escape the pursuing canine, she abandoned her bike and began to run as fast as her little feet would carry her; however, it wasn’t fast enough. By this time in the chase, all I could hear was Lexi screaming and crying as the dog closed in on her and finally backed her into a place without an escape route. About this time, the owner of the dog showed up and saved the day but Lexi was not impressed with his neglect to keep his dog on a leash. Needless to say, she was pretty shaken up.
As Lexi gets older, I hope she learns the importance of staying on the bike because sometimes running isn’t the best way of escape.
