Who you gonna call..

When the people you called can't find you? Buddy the dog.

Life happens

The other day I had lunch at a Hawaiian barbeque place I like. A family of three came in the door as I was ordering. I paid, stepped back from the counter, and stepped right onto their three year old boy. He was stealthy like a ninja, but at this stage I must say he lacks the ninja's speedy reflexes.

Later that day I came home from work and opened the back door to let the dogs in. Cob entered, but their was no Gus. I called a couple times and then he came scurrying in from the alley through a hole in the fence. I replaced the pickets and then, out of curiosity, went out to track his adventures in the alley (I'm no Kit Carson, it rained a lot last week so it was easy to follow him in the mud). As far as I can tell, he spent most of his great adventure coming and going through the hole. At some point he went south a few houses, until big dogs barked at him and he realized he was alone, then ran back to the yard. Then he went west most of the length of the alley, until dogs on both sides of the alley barked. Also, their is a duck that spends a lot of time in the alley. Tracks and other evidence were everywhere. I never would have guessed.

Humanity and sub-humans

There is some fundamental aspect missing in the character of somebody who will dump a sick or injured dog to slowly starve or freeze in the cold. If you have a short attention span, don't get a dog. If you don't want it anymore, if you can't take care of it for whatever reason, shoot it or put it down. Take it to the pound. Find it a new home. Be an adult human being and take responsibility. It is a dog. Don't kid yourself. If you dump it there's maybe a one percent chance of somebody taking it in, and an eighty percent chance that it dies slowly, alone and scared. Nineteen percent chance that it becomes somebody else's problem and they have to shoot it for chasing livestock.

It's a dog. Humans domesticated its ancestors thousands of years ago. It depends on humans to be responsible for it. If your humanity isn't dependable, don't get a dog.

What the hail

Last night I was at my parents' house when it started raining. Ever since their children began moving out my parents have been ending up with more and more dogs. Right now "little dogs" means Winky the one eyed terror and Ace, who is bright but the opposite of brave. "Big dogs" includes Heidi and Rowdy, 13 and 12 year old collies, and Barrett(think 50 caliber), a canine cross between a rock and a stegosaurus who mostly just knows how to wag his tail and carry things in his mouth. Heidi is incredibly sweet, but pretty much senile. The little dogs were already inside, terrified of the storm, but the big dogs were out in it. I went to the back door to let them in just as it started hailing. The boys were waiting on the porch and came in as soon as the door opened, but poor Heidi was in the middle of the yard, stretching her nose out to sniff the hailstone that had just bounced off of her head. In the time it took me to say "Come here Heidi girl, come in" three more had hit her and she was getting more confused. It did make her start wagging her tail to think I was coming out to play, though.

Not having any better ideas, I started across the yard to get her, accompanied by Barrett, toy in mouth, and Ace. Ace was too scared of the storm to get more than a couple feet from me. Barrett doesn't sweat the small stuff when there is a chance that something might happen. Once we got past the porch Ace learned two things, 1. Hail hurts when you only weigh 10 pounds, and 2. As long as he stood under Barrett he was safe.

The hail was getting bigger as we made our way to Heidi, who seemed to find us curious. I tried asking her to come in again and she yelped as a big one hit her in the nose. I still wasn't smart enough to think of any good ideas, so I leaned over her and took one behind my ear. Now that she had an umbrella she was ready to go inside, so away we went.

It wasn't until we were inside and wiping the rain off that I noticed something was missing and looked back out the window. There, in the middle of the hail storm, stood Barrett, still holding his toy and wanting to play, and Ace, unwilling to step out from under him.