aka How To Stop Traffic in NYC
Snick and I just went for a long bedtime walk. We walked and walked and walked. He rounded the corner onto a street he walks on almost every day. There was still some snow there. He started sniffing around and checking it out. All the sudden he started to run back the other way. Then he abruptly stopped, sat, lifted a paw, and started to SCREAM.
Have you ever heard the Shiba Scream? No? Well, if you live in my neighborhood and you thought you just heard a dog get hit by a car, that was Snickers. With cold salt in his paw apparently.
I knelt down and held him. And he screamed. I put my hand around his paw. And he screamed. I started to gently rub it to see if I could get whatever was in there LOOSE. And he screamed. Less. Finally he whimpered and then he stopped.
Meanwhile a group of pedestrians stopped in their tracks across the avenue. People stared out of two cars stopped at the intersection. A lady walked over and asked if he was ok and then said she’d thought I was beating him (from the sound) until she saw I was holding him. A Con Ed crew stopped working and a woman on the fifth floor of the building across the street opened her window and was calling out something about “dog” and “hurt” and “?”.
And, yes, I had to carry him most of the way home.
I have a 6 yr old Shiba girl who does a similar thing when she steps on icemelt, the harsh salt they put on the sidewalk to melt ice. And then you have to carry her home. so maybe that’s it?
by the way, your site is wonderful for us Shiba lovers who can’t get enough of the breed!
Aww, poor Snick. That Shiba scream is definitely something that you either have or haven’t heard – and I’ve heard it!
I used to go winter camping every year with a friend of mine and one year was toying with the idea of bringing Jordan (my black lab) along. In the end I decided it was just too cold for her… but my pre-trip research turned up this.
Aisha – Thanks. 🙂
Ami – I bet Dakota’s got a big scream.
David – Snick won’t wear boots. Crazy dog won’t wear anything but a collar and he’d rather not wear that!
Wow, the Shiba Scream. People don’t believe you until they hear it.
Poor baby Snick! Glad he’s ok.
I had a similar experience in San Francisco. I was staying in a friend’s house for a couple of weeks and brought my newly rescued adult Shiba with me. She started acting very strange (walking slowly and sort of hunched with her tail down) and then would emit bits of scream. I took her to the vet and she screamed the whole time and fought against everyone as if we were going to sacrifice her. The woman in the waiting room had tears in her eyes when I came out and said she was so sorry for my dog. I said that the vet couldn’t find anything wrong. Later that night my girlfriend said she had been having lunch in a restaurant that was near the vet’s office. She told me about this horrible sound she heard! We figured out that it was my Shiba, whose scream had permeated the walls and made it’s way across the street and into the restaurant. She hadn’t known I was there and as it turns out the time was the same. Yikes! It’s the worst sound in the world. The auditory version of a skunk smell.
I’m sorry…I shouldn’t laugh…but…OMG ROFLMAO! Poor Snick, poor you, poor NY to be subjected to the shiba scream!!!
Wolf scared my dad the other day…he was upstairs and started screaming and Dad opened the door just in time to see Wolf vomit down the stairs, pace in a circle a few times, lay down and go back to sleep. He’d swallowed a bit of his favorite toy, apparently, as my dad could see bits of it.
Sorry to be so gross!