Nasty Alaskan Malamutes at Arlington-Arkwright park

I leashed up my two dogs to walk out of Arlington-Arkwright off-leash park in St. Paul about 4 this evening. Two Malamutes jumped us from behind. They lunged at my two dogs as I tried to cover them with my body. One Malamute then jumped on me from the right--he actually had his paws on my shoulders and then my head at one point. The other Malamute continued to lunge at Alfie and Buddha from the right. I shoved and kicked out and yelled, but they kept coming. I managed to stay upright but barely. I finally kicked one in the teeth and elbowed the other in the side. I saw the owner walking at a normal pace toward us and yelled for him to call his dogs off. He just kept sauntering towards us as if nothing was happening. Three ladies came running towards me to help. The guy claimed my dogs were aggressive (as I said, they were on leash and we were trying to leave). It turns out four of the other people had also witnessed incidents with these same Malamutes shortly before. All of the dogs involved were substantially smaller than the Malamutes. After each incident, the guy had claimed the smaller dogs were aggressive. I shouted at him. We all shouted at him. He told me to go ahead and call the police if I claimed his dogs were aggressive. So I did. He quickly left with his dogs (by the way, had no leashes for them outside of the park), but we got his license plate # and make and model of vehicle. The St. Paul police arrived 45 minutes later. They said they could do nothing and referred to it as just a situation with a rude, bullying person, an "asshole" as one of the officers called him. I explained, again, that I didn't care if the guy was a rude bully, but I did care that I was attacked by his two 100+ Malamutes who were out to hurt me. Same response from the police. I had three witnesses there willing to speak up, the license # and make and model of his vehicle, but the St. Paul police said there was nothing they could/would do.

I think I'm going to be bruised as hell tomorrow. But I'm okay and my dogs are okay. I guess that's the most important thing. But it's been another time of realizing how little resilience I have after this past year of hell. My hands are still shaking. I have a pounding headache over my left eye. All I could think about was that I can't afford to be hurt; without health insurance, I can't afford an emergency room visit. Or a trip to the emergency vet for the dogs. I know it's wrong to have dogs and not be able to afford the expenses of them. But what can I say? I used to have thousands of dollars in my credit union savings account just for emergency vet costs and crisis car repairs. Now I'm living on that money.

I'm going to call St. Paul Animal Control and St. Paul Parks & Rec on Monday morning. I don't know if it will do any good. But if I can file a complaint against this Malamute owner, I will. Next time his dogs might attack a child or an adult more frail.

And I'd been having such a great day, too. God knows they've been few and far in between lately. I resent like all hell my nice day ending like this.