I yelled SIT! And he sat

Around 1988, I was biking through a neighborhood in Charleston, S.C., and a shepherd-like dog came charging around a house with no fence.

For a second, I was scared to death. I had no time to think, so I yelled, "Sit!" The big dog stopped so quickly that he skidded to a halt on his tail. He sat there and looked around puzzled.

As he sat there, it was like he was thinking, "What happened? I had him in my sights."

I hurried up to the light on St. Andrews Boulevard and stopped for a second. Rather than wait to see if the dog was coming, I looked both ways and hurried across the road to my home at Riversbend.

I didn't want that pooch to change his mind.

EMAIL: tgilli52@gmail.com  TWITTER: EDITORatWORK

More entries from The Dog Blog

• Katie cried

• Growl and pull

• 13-plus years with my dog Lady

• ... said the spider to ...

• The Dog Diary (2014)

• OOH! OOH! The stereophonic huskies

• What Lady and Michael Jackson had in common

EDITOR@WORK blog entries

• You really DO need an editor

• Reminders for would-be novelists

• What I do when I'm editing

• What I charge (it's a deal) and what I edit

• Slogging through the Internet

• J-school: More eyes on your stories

• J-school: Go out and learn

• Rookie mistakes for magazine writers

Blog entries from The Auto Racing Journal

• Angel in Black: Remembering Dale Earnhardt Sr.

(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)

• Then Junior Said to Jeff...

(the book of great NASCAR stories)

• My best day as a sports writer

• Jeff Gordon's milk toast to Dale Earnhardt

• Wayne Auton: A life in racing

More blog entries by Tom Gillispie

• Resume for a writer and editor

• An editor's views on powerful writing

• Advice for be and would-be novelists

• Links to TG's stories online

• Favorite quotes

• What I do when I'm editing

Anecdotes by Tom Gillispie

• Wipeout at Death Valley

• Days with rainbows

• A desperate writer working in the dark

• Yer outta there!