Urban Combat Exercises

I took the pooch out for his morning stroll out to the pier this morning, and as I got closer to the base of the pier, along the marina walkway, I spied eight Canadian soldiers dressed in full camo in combat stance, all but one holding an assault rifle, held quite threateningly.



The eighth soldier, a tall, mean looking guy was clutching some kind of squad weapon, a light-machine gun with tripod (correction - bipod - actually this is what I saw anyway but brain made me write tripod). I gently removed my hands from my jacket pockets as I awkwardly walked through them and turned onto the pier. Monty held back about 50 feet, looking quite terrified of the soldiers. He finally charged through them, tail under his legs, hackles raised, eyes wild with worry. He then ran up to me and hid under my legs.



Smart beagle, I'd say. This is not something you see every day in downtown Toronto. 10 minutes later they extracted themselves in an orderly, watchful manner and seemed to vanish into the buildings and alleys nearby.



Shortly afterwards, Monty met a 3 1/2 month old West Highland Terrier wearing boots. They communed for a while and we made our way home.