I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you when I tell you that Riggins isn’t always the best behaved dog on “the hill” (aka Runyon).  He often has to be reminded that others can be there too as he feels the hill is owned by him and all hikers/dogs/crazies that can be found there are only allowed to enjoy the small part of nature because he has allowed it.  This weekend he alerted a group of folks to this fact.

We were at the end of our hike having taken the paved road down and the spine up.  Since we both had some energy left we added the extra little hill at the end that takes you to the top of the highest observation area.  From there we casually walked down toward the road that takes us to our car.  Well, I walked casually.  Riggins took his normal route which was to zig zag back and forth from one side of the trail to the other, taking the road less traveled which usually includes ducking under or through bush and trees.  He is a great hiker and runs up in front of me, stops to look back and will stay there until he has me in sight then runs a little further on.  If he doesn’t see me in, what he believes is, an appropriate amount of time he will backtrack until he finds me again.  This means that in the most wooded and hilly areas I don’t always have him in my sight.  Imagine my alarm when I came up on a hill and could see out further that Riggins was close to having a group of people trapped on the path.  Not just any group of people.  This group of people were in costume, including tunics and swords, obviously reenacting some important battle to the Jewish people.  As Riggins started growling and taking his “we can fight this out if you want” stance the wall of soldiers (and others with cameras to document the event) came closer.  Finally Riggins barking slowed them down and I was able to catch up and grab him just as a young boy stepped forward, pointed his sword directly at Riggins and glared him down.  With one yank I had Riggins off to the side as the group passed as I kept trying to calm him, “Oh stop it. They are fine.  They are just in costume.  Leave them alone.”  I can only imagine the onslaught of Hebrew being thrown at me didn’t contain many compliments!  Well who can blame them?

I’m not up to speed on my Jewish Religious History to identify who Riggins was portraying in their reenactment but I am confident that if I hadn’t been there history would have been re-written and the holy land would now belong to the dogs!