The lady with the flashlight

This morning, after I dragged my butt out of bed a full hour after I wanted to get up and go swim, I was walking Pippi on one of our longer loops and spied a lady across the street ahead of me with a dog and a flashlight.  Pippi, for whatever reason (perhaps she was still pondering the continous presence of flowing water running down Lenox onto Prospect no matter what the weather - is there a leak?  has the stream been diverted? or the sudden (related?) appearance of three inches of ice chunks between Lenox and Filbert) didn't notice said lady or the potential new puppy friend until they had crossed back to our side of the road at which point Pippi....freaked.  She turned around and tried to run the other way with her tail tucked, her butt tucked, and her ears flat.  She was terrified.  Of the flashlight.  The lady walked down the road that we were going to take and I was able to drag Pippi, tail still tucked and ears still flat, past that road and towards the next one.  She was walking full speed, looking behind her constantly, tail still tucked, until we were about 1.5 blocks away.  I was able to get her to slow down and let me pet her quivering, scardy-dog body and tell her it would be okay, etc., but...she was honest-to-goodness terrified of the flashlight lady.  In her defense, it was a fairly bright LED light, but still...a flashlight?
Maybe she was having flashbacks to the accident last Spring and it reminded her of the vet's office?  or maybe an angel told her to go towards the light while she was shocky and bleeding and she remembered?  Who knows.

Speaking of dogs, last night as I drove down our street I noticed a dog, approximately the same colors as Pippi, in our neighbors yard.  I slammed on the brakes, realized it was not my idiot dog but someone elses, and pulled into the driveway.  Said idiot dog was in my neighbor's backyard while our dog and our other neighbor's dogs were going berserk on their respective porches.  I left all my stuff in the car and went running into the backyard to try and catch the errant pooch.  Her owner was cutting through the yard behind ours and we set off after the dog together.  No matter what, she kept running away and would NOT come to me or her owner as we chased her through yards, over hedges, down streets, etc.  I spent a good 15 minutes going after this crazy bitch (both meanings), in my work clothes, and loafers, only to lose sight of her and have her owner - talking on his cell phone - give up and head home.  "She has a tag, someone will find her."  Ummmm....okay?  So I walked around a few more minutes before heading home myself, realizing that I didn't have my phone and my family probably thought I had been kidnapped from the driveway.