8 miles at 10:30am around my neighborhood. Weather= 80F, 60% humidity, 63 dew point, 14mph wind gusting to 23mph, cloudy. Average pace= 9:25/m. Ok, so I'm running along in my 4th mile going up this gradual hill on a residential street when all of a sudden I notice two dogs in the front yard up ahead at this house on my left. They are not with a human and they are not on lease. They start running toward me. The bigger one is a yellow dog about the size of a german shepherd. The other one is black and brown medium sized. I don't know what breed they are, maybe mutts. Anyways, the bigger one runs right up to me and jumps on me. When he does this, his head is at the level of my head. He bites my arm. My entire life flashes before my eyes. Thankfully, he didn't bite hard... it was more like a playful bite. BUT STILL... his mouth covered my entire forearm. If he wanted to, this dog could really hurt me! I don't know how to handle this. I stopped running and tried to start talking sweet to him so he doesn't get mad. He keeps jumping on me and "play" biting me. At one point he had both paws on my shoulders and he's leaning in toward my neck. I do an about face and avoid it. I am freaking out. I'm calling out for help but there is no one outside. I couldn't figure out if I should walk or run. I was worried if I ran, he might try to tackle me. My mind kept playing back this this video I saw a few months ago from a news helicopter of a police chase. Suddenly, the car they were chasing stopped and a man jumped out. He started running into this field. The police let the dogs out. Those dogs were so much faster than the man... they chased him down and tackled him easily. The man tried to get back up and keep running but the dogs tackled him again and held him there until the police got there. I was just imagining that happening to me! I walked for about 3 minutes. The dogs would run off and come back jumping on me. Finally, I started jogging really slow. The dogs jogged beside me and I sped up. They followed me for 2 miles!! Actually, I started kinda enjoying their presence but I was worried that they'd follow me onto a busy street. Eventually, I lead them into another neighborhood and they stopped at a sprinkler and I guess decided to stay there and not follow me anymore. I have encountered big dogs before on my run but I have never been jumped on and "play bitten" by one. It was pretty frightening. Now, I'm wondering if I should get in my car and try to find them... maybe call animal control. I don't want them to get run over.
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