Do not fuck with the ones I love

As I am walking Hanna back to the apartment in the early fall evening, feeling so peaceful and glad to be walking with my dog down a leaf-lined alleyway on an early fall evening in Colorado, a large gray dog barks and growls on the other side of a fence. I tell Hanna everything is okay and to walk on, what with the fact that the large barking dog is secured on the other side of a tall fence, and then the large barking growling gray dog stands up on its hind legs and crashes its front legs down on the gate, which swings open, and in a moment of horrifying certainty I know the latch has uncaught, and the large snarling 80-pound gray dog is freed from the gate and lashing at Hanna, he doesn't even pause to register the surprise of having crashed through the tall gate, he just lunges, catching her shoulder as she darts to the side, and then I am standing up tall and inhaling and I am shouting No, and my voice is so ferocious and unafraid that the large biting gray dog sits down and snaps to attention. You leave my dog alone--now I'm the one snarling, I curl my lip and grab its collar, drag its body so swiftly that it catches air as I turn, practically throw the large gray dog back into the yard, its paws skidding into the dirt, and slam the gate and secure the latch. I am breathing hard, enraged, and I admonish the large gray dog again, I can't remember what I said, and then I am turning to Hanna and crouching by her side and petting her head and examining her shoulder, which is wet with the spit of the large gray dog, and telling her, as she cowers in the stonedust alleway, that everything is okay. As she slinks away I turn to administer one more aggressive stare at the large sulking gray dog, and then I walk Hanna the rest of the way home, talking softly, and when we are safely back inside the apartment I feed her several salmon treats, I hug her, I tell her again that everything is okay. When she exits to the bedroom I walk to the sink to fill a glass of water and my heart is pounding so hard that I am surprised my hands are not shaking.