Retract:

 1. To take back; disavow

 2. To draw back or in

In the Sun’s Today section this morning is a story about Al Freihofer, who plans to row his boat all day long in the Inner Harbor Saturday to raise money for Recycled Love, a local dog rescue organization.

The story (click here) tells you all about that. What it doesn’t tell you is how, with some help from my dog, I almost killed the man.

But first we must go back to my new retractable leash.

I’d avoided getting a retractable leash, favoring the good old fashioned kind, until a dog trainer talked me into buying one a couple of weeks ago — a big, heavy duty model, about three times the size of a hockey puck.

It has its advantages – mainly, instead of Ace jerking my arm out of its socket every 10 seconds, it only happens about every 30 seconds with the retractable leash. He could roam and sniff a little more, and I could walk at a less hurky-jerky pace.

I hooked the new leash to my 115-pound dog last Wednesday, and, along with my 15-year-old son, walked down to the Inner Harbor to meet Al, who was being photographed by the paper while he practiced.

Ace and I sat on a wall and watched as Al’s Adirondack Guide Boat went out with the photographer and rowed back in. Then he offered my son a ride.

Al, an 8th grade English teacher and assistant headmaster at Boys’ Latin School, was holding the boat steady at the dock in front of the Maryland Science Center, and my son ran down to hop on. Ace suddenly jumped up and ran down there as well, extending the leash to its full 20 feet, at which point it flew out of my hand and headed -- while retracting, and at great speed -- directly for Al's head.

Despite my shout to "look out!" and despite me wishing I could at that moment retract the retractable leash, it hit Al smack in the mouth.

The leash landed in the boat as Al doubled over in pain, looking up a couple of times to stoically insist it was nothing. My son got his ride, but even from afar, I could see Al’s lip swelling up as the boat came back in.

"Don’t worry about it," he said again — proving what one might guess about a man who would row a boat all day long to raise money for dogs in need of homes.

This I can say in all objectivity and with no need for retraction: Al Freihofer is a very gracious man.

 ***

Row for Rescue activities will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at Rash Field. They include pet-related vendors, pets available for adoption, flyball demonstrations, and appearances by an animal acupuncturist, an animal communicator and my dog Ace (star of the dogumentary "Hey, Mister, What Kind of Dog is That?"), who will be giving out pawtographs.

For more information on Freihofer’s row, visit http://www.rowforrescue.blogspot.com 

For more information on Recycled Love, visit http://www.recycledlove.org