Dogs and Squirrels: Sometimes Life Gets Nutty

A Rottweiler ran out into the road to greet Grinner and Pilot while we were walking yesterday.  He scared the heck out of me, but luckily he was very friendly.  The incident did get me thinking about all the encounters with "wildlife" my dogs and I have had over the years. 
I used to live in town and would walk my then two basenjis each morning at 5:00. I was always afraid I'd lose one of the basenjis if I dropped a leash from my still groggy hands, so I kept Phoenix, my escape artist, on a leash which snapped around my waist.  That left both hands free to control Mad Max who fancied himself a sled dog.  
One morning I heard a crashing sound in the tree above us. Before I could even look up a squirrel juvenile with half of its tail missing FELL out of the tree, landed on my head, slid inside my jacket and clawed its way down my back and left leg before making a terrified escape onto the ground. 
I'm still not exactly sure of the sequence of events, but Phoenix on my left tried to climb up my legs to catch the squirrel as it scampered down.  Brave Max, who was on the right, did his best to defend "his girls" by circling and lunging at the squirrel.  All of his efforts might have been more effective if he hadn't been on my right while the squirrel was doing its death spiral done my left leg. 
In the amount of time it took me to scream like a girl, I had two dogs' leashes tightly wrapped around my body and one firm conviction in my brain--I had RABIES and maybe my poor dogs did, too! I could feel the squirrel's marks on my back even as I disentangled myself--not an easy feat while Maxi was still convinced he could kill the squirrel which had run right back up the tree it had fallen out of.  Soon I realized my hounds did not have a scratch on them. No canine rabies! Good. Now I would be the only one to die and I had time to write a will in which to provide them a good home.
In spite of my scream when the squirrel hit my head, no one came out at 5:00 AM to see what all the fuss was about. (Later I would remember that and wonder just how safe it really was to walk my dogs alone that early.) However, right then the only thought I had was to find someone who could tell me how many squirrel bites I had on my back.
Unfortunately for my neighbor, she arrived on the street walking her Pit Bull a minute later.  I think I scared her worse than the squirrel had scared me as I frantically called across the road for her. Bless her because she took pity on the crazy woman rambling on about rabid squirrels and did check my back after she stopped laughing. 
Apparently squirrels are not known for viciously attacking people--who knew?  What I thought were bites were merely scratches from the clumsy youngster's paws.  She assured me I would not get rabies and so did the four other women who I checked my back at work.  Still I was leery everytime we passed that tree from then on though Max and Phoenix always looked forward to reaching it.  I think until the day we moved they thought it was a squirrel slot machine, and if they waited long enough, one day it would rain squirrels on them again.