Hey friends, Hannah here 👋

This week, I learned some uncomfortable lessons I feel called to share. In short, I learned that when something threatens my dogs, my inner mostly-vegan animal lover disappears VERY quickly. 👀

Earlier this week, I was walking my dogs when a large street dog, newly in the neighborhood, lunged at us repeatedly, trying to take a bite out of my little guy, Nando.

I screamed so loud my throat still hurts, tried to scare it away, and somewhere in the few seconds my brain had to figure out what was happening, I decided I was going to kick this dog as hard as I possibly could.

Knock it OUT if I had to.

I kicked at it and missed. It lunged again. Eventually, somehow we all got away unharmed, and moments later I sat down with my dogs and cried. Adrenaline, I imagine, but also because I was a little ashamed and shocked by how murderous my thoughts had become.

I love animals. I eat mostly vegan. I’m the person who worries about spiders and bugs and whether something is suffering. Yet the second this dog was coming at my dogs, my family, there was no philosophical debate to be had. My brain went straight to: protect them at all costs.

Rat in the shed...🐀

A few days later, I found myself having a slower version of the same moral dilemma.

We had an unwelcome guest in our shed: a big, fat rat had decided that underneath one of our built-in cupboards was a lovely place to set up home. 😬

Before anything else, I tried diplomacy. I played podcasts in the shed, kept bright lights on, and tried to make the place as irritating and unpleasant as possible, hoping it would relocate.

It did not.

Instead, it chewed through the tubing on my washing machine, left poop around the shed and pulled out the steel wool I had stuffed into the drains.

This was a persistent rat. And I really, really did not want to kill it.

So I kept wondering where the line was.

How long do you keep trying the humane option when something is damaging your home and potentially bringing disease into it? At what point does protecting your own space and family become more important than protecting the thing invading it?

Then I closed my eyes and immediately saw that dog coming at me and my dogs again. That feeling came straight back: protect what is yours to protect.

So I reluctantly called an exterminator.

He came quickly, put down traps and poison, and told us this was the best way to stop what could quickly become a much bigger problem.

I still hated it. But I did it.

And because the universe decided this week needed a comedy subplot, the exterminator then asked me on a date. 🤣

Not only is this probably the first man to invite little lesbian me on a date in about 20 years, but apparently this historic moment had to happen while discussing how best to get rid of a rat in my shed.

A spectacular cherry on top of an already very strange and stressful week.

And then yesterday... I guess I needed a follow-up lesson...

I walked up the hill near my house alone first because I wanted to see if the dog was there before taking my dogs on their usual walk to the park.

And then another, different dog came at me.

A white dog I’ve seen for more than a year. I’ve walked past it alone and with my dogs, and it has always been calm and docile.

Yesterday, it came at me with immense force.

I think it nearly bit me seven or eight times. I went straight back into adrenaline overdrive, screaming at it before remembering that this particular dog is deaf, pretending to throw stones and kicking at it, doing anything I could think of to keep its teeth away from me.

Every time I kicked, it jumped backward, only to launch itself towards me again, snarling, mouth open, teeth out. At one point my foot brushed its face, and I remember thinking with certainty: I am going to hospital today. I will have many scars. I hope it stops after one bite.

My partner eventually turned the corner after hearing my screams. The second this dog saw my dogs, it finally backed off.

Then the guy from the house these dogs live outside of came running out, shouting that they hadn’t done anything.

I was LIVID.

YES. THEY. FUCKING. DID.

Later, I bumped into two women from the neighborhood who immediately knew which dogs I meant. They’ve become the bane of their lives too.

Which leaves me with yet another moral decision.

The man at the house doesn’t technically own these dogs. They’re street dogs. But he feeds them, keeps collars on them, and protects them from being picked up by animal control. I understand why. He doesn’t want them taken away and potentially put down, and neither do I.

But I also don’t think you get to do the nice half of caring for something and opt out of the difficult half.

If you feed them, protect them and make yourself responsible for keeping them there, you have to be accountable for what they’re doing to everyone else, too.

And somewhere in this absolutely wild week of dogs, rats, teeth, poison and awkward date invites, there is strangely a business and life lesson lurking.

Sometimes we confuse being kind with avoiding the difficult thing.

❌ We keep a client, partner, friend or family member who is making us miserable because we understand why they’re behaving the way they are.
❌ We hold onto someone who isn’t doing their job because we feel bad about letting them go.
❌ We leave a broken process in place because fixing it will cause discomfort.
❌ We put half-measures around a problem and hope it will stop being a problem.

Sometimes the podcasts and bright lights convince the rat to leave. And sometimes the rat eats your washing machine wiring. 🤷‍♀️

Later, I stood in the shower, closed my eyes, and immediately saw the white dog again. This time it was just a mess of sharp teeth in my mind's eye.

I still hate the thought that I could have hurt it, but I also know now that if it had come down to that, I would have.

Sometimes you just have to act.

Lesson #1: Don’t wait until you’re in crisis to decide how you’re going to protect yourself.

I’d been told for months to carry pepper spray and a long stick on my walks, and I hadn’t. I waited until I was literally kicking at a dog to think, hmm, perhaps I should have prepared for this.

We do the same thing in business and life. We see warning signs. We know a boundary is getting blurry. We can tell where something is heading, but avoid the awkward conversation because nothing terrible has happened yet.

Then eventually it does.

Sometimes the best form of self-preservation is making the uncomfortable decision early enough that you never reach that point.

Lesson #2: Caring for something means taking responsibility for its impact.

That man cares about those dogs. He feeds them, collars them and protects them from being taken away. But care without accountability is incomplete.

Business is the same. You don’t get to enjoy the freedom, money and flexibility while ignoring how your decisions affect clients, contractors or customers.

Caring is a feeling. Responsibility is what you do about it.

That’s a wrap for now. I hope my series of unfortunate events has unlocked something you may have needed to hear, too. 🌯

Hannah

P.S. Fresh off the blog, and thankfully involving considerably fewer teeth: I just published my guide to the best email marketing platforms for VAs and freelancers in 2026. If email marketing is part of your own business, or something you want to offer clients, you can read it here.​