The dog lunges and I roll back into the tree roots and shrubs with him, clamping his snout with one hand. I get a fistful of dog snot, but at least those teeth are contained for the moment. I reach down with the other hand and grab the dog’s crotch.

Congratulations. It’s a boy.

Screw squeamishness. In the words of David Byrne: I ain’t got time for that now.

The dog is in my arms and he’s wriggling like a sea creature out of water. I can feel the animal’s fury testing my muscles to their limits. Branches snap around our heads, and with the dusk falling it’s like a scene from a horror movie. I half expect some masked creep to emerge from the alley with a mommy fixation and a carving knife.

I give the Rottweiler’s balls a squeeze to get him good and angry, then use every pound of strength I can muster to flip him over the garden fence. I hear the thump and scrabble as he lands awkwardly next door then finds his paws. This is not a move I had ever planned or run through in any of my justin-case scenarios; it’s kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing and could even work to my advantage.

Go, Bonzo, I broadcast at the dog. Give ’em hell.

Next door the commotion is immediate. Bonzo rampages through the drug den’s back garden looking for some throats to tear out. I’m betting this particular dog is not used to being manhandled over a fence. They say that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but I would argue that a scorned woman would pale and back out of the room faced with a Rottweiler who just got his scrotum twisted.

I peep over the fence. Next door’s garden has roughly the same dimensions: a rectangular lawn maybe twenty by thirty, with various immature trees clustered at the end. It also has a freshly laid rear driveway with a pick-up reversed up to a back door, which is obviously reinforced.

There’s a guy on the door who doesn’t know whether to give Bonzo his tough-guy face or shit his pants.

I may not be able to get myself into this house, but maybe I can make whoever is in there come out to me.

The dog shakes his sleek head like he’s disembowelling an imaginary rabbit, then spots the guy at the door and decides to transfer my crimes to him. His growl says, I am going to eat you alive, motherfucking ball-squeezer.

There isn’t a man on this planet who isn’t scared by a Rottweiler coming at him with drool streaming out of his mouth.