THE NEIGHBORHOOD BULLIES

I think almost everyone has known a bully.

Even bullies have known a bully - they just don't think that they were a bully.

I got picked on in elementary school because I was taller than your average college graduate student at the time. I was 5'9" at age 12, which meant I was taller than my teachers, taller than my school's principal, and, most important of all, I was taller than every single boy on the playground.

Somehow this brought out the demons of male pride (sorry, men, but the girls were never the ones picking on me), and pushing, prodding and poking me were the only solution their limited brain could find.

I maintained my normal pacifist attitude for several years and simply walked away. And then one day I simply broke down and punched the kid back.

Hard.

The bullying stopped that day. I also gained a bit of a rep.

Now my dog is getting bullied.

My next-door neighbors, who are wonderful, caring and beautiful people you could possible ask for, unfortunately have one of the stupidest dogs even born on the planet.

Geronimo looks like a slightly obese yellow Labrador following a frontal lobotomy. He's huge and dopey and extremely enthusiast about any attention he can get.

Blanca is smaller, and quite a bit brighter (of course - she is a female, so...), but also more than a bit standoffish.

And when they get loose (which only happens a couple of times a year), they will happily follow you back to their home and go back into their fenced yard.

Unless they see MY dog - my smallish German Shepherd/Border Collie mix.

And then they attack him. Both of them. Simultaneously.

The same protection mother instinct that causes bears to kill any creature that comes between them and their cubs kicks right in, and I have beaten Geronimo and Blanca off my dog with yucca stalks, mesquite tree limbs and my bare hands.

Fortunately, Murray has an extremely thick coat, and at most has had to lick a few leg wounds.

But does anyone know of a canine self-defense class I can enroll him in?