Dog Magnet

I know I've already mentioned how S. came to be with us. What I didn't mention is that apparently our front porch is some kind of dog magnet. A few days before Thanksgiving last year, there was a very thin, medium-sized black dog running around the neighborhood. A couple of our neighbors thought it might be S. and came to tell us about it. But S. was quietly laying in the living room where N. was using her as a step to climb up on the couch. Have I mentioned we have dumb dogs?

Anyway, sure enough, as soon as night fell, guess where this poor skinny black dog went to find some shelter? Yep, our front porch. This, of course, had our dogs in an uproar. I tried to get the dog to come to me and she would come close enough to smell me but would not let me touch her. She had a collar with a rabies tag on it. I got close enough to read the number off of it and went to the county website to see if I could find the owner using the tag number. It said the collar was for a black sharpei. The face of the dog looked like a sharpei but it was so skinny, there wasn't a wrinkle anywhere on this dog. I got a name and phone number. I called and asked if they had lost a dog but they said no. The dog would eat but wouldn't let us get close enough to help it. The one time I was almost able to grab her collar, she snapped at me. Unfortunately, there was nothing else we could do for her so we called Animal Control and they came to get her.

Now I'm not exactly what you'd call a dog lover, but I did grow up with dogs and have always liked dogs way more than cats. I think I just have enough to do and take care of so dogs have taken a waaaaaaaaay back seat in my life. I did feel bad that we couldn't help this dog though. It's a shame to see an animal in such poor shape. Which brings us to last night.

We had just put J. to bed and D was watching N. put together a new puzzle in the dining room (50 pieces, recommended for ages 4 to 7 and she did it in about 20 minutes - pretty good for a little girl that just turned 3, even if I do say so myself). I was relaxing for a few minutes playing freecell on the computer in the office at the back of the house. Not very relaxing though because I am actually very good at freecell and this one game had me stumped for a while. I finally figured it out but it took me 4 tries, very frustrating. (It's game #20547 if anyone is good at freecell and wants to try it, let me know how you do with it, it's tricky).

Anyway, D. came to the office and said, "you'll never guess what's on the front porch." I'm a terrible guesser so I just asked what. He said, "a dog". ~CRAP~ I thought, thinking there is no way we're keeping another dog. The dog had run off the front porch when D. went out there and wouldn't come to him. I went out to have a look and saw the dog near the end of our driveway looking at us. I took a couple of steps forward and said, "come here, baby". That dog came running at me full speed like I was it's long lost best friend. It was a big shaggy dog like the one in the disney movie. She was soaking wet and wanting to jump all over me. Luckily, she was wearing a collar. I got the phone number off the collar and told D. to call. The owner sounded relieved and only lived a few blocks away so he said he'd be right over. Meanwhile, I grabbed a dog towel and dried her off and gave her a biscuit.

A. wandered out to see what the commotion was. When we told him what was going on, he said, "maybe they'll give you a reward for finding her and calling them". Not likely, I thought, even though their address is in a community of million dollar homes. The owner came a few minutes later and we handed her over. He said, "She does this all the time, we don't know what to do." I said, "You need to be careful, this is a busy street, she could get run over." He said, "Oh yeah, she already got hit by a car once, we had to take her to the animal hospital and everything". As I stood their dumbstruck by the idiocy of some people, he took the dog and went to his car with a vague wave of "thanks". As I said, I'm not a huge dog fan, but even I was questioning the wisdom of giving the dog back to that moron. I just hope I don't someday see that poor dog lying on the side of the road somewhere because this idiot is too stupid to keep his dog safe.

Meanwhile, any ideas on how to dog magnetize our front porch? I'm afraid D. might want to keep the next dog that comes along since T. is getting old and may not be around for much longer. Personally, I think one dog is plenty. Any thoughts?