dog story, part whatever

Well, life is back to normal here...almost. I enjoyed my four days of solitude. I got most of the tomato plants planted and a purple orchid tree planted (but not the peach tree yet), I made headway in the 850 page book I'm reading, I cooked a little bit, I finally got the magnolia leaves all put together (no picture yet). Mostly though I didn't do diddly squat.

The quiet ended Friday evening when I drove to the city to pick up grandgirl Jade who wanted to come spend the weekend. Saturday morning, I was standing out in the Little Backyard and saw the two big dogs trotting along the edge of the Wild Space toward the road and cast my gaze to my own Big Backyard and there was the puppy, at the back edge of my property out in the open, big dogs a good distance away. I opened the gate and ran towards the puppy who saw me and started trotting towards the Wild Space and it and I reached the edge at about the same time. It cowered under some scrub and started yipping and when I reached for it it started crying. Took me a few tries before I could grab it by the scruff of it's neck (didn't want to get bit), at which point it started shrieking and I took off running back to the Little Backyard and the safety of the fence. I didn't look to see if the adults were coming after me, just hoped I got there first. You would have thought I was torturing that puppy from the sounds it was making. Pulled Jade right out of bed to see what was going on.

As soon as I put it down it ran behind the turtle pond which is snug up against the fence in the corner. Jade started trying to coax it out when I went in to get it some food and water.

It wasn't long before it's hunger overcame it's fear.

SPOT (Stray Pet Outreach Team) was having an adoption event that morning at the Junior College so we shut the puppy up in the little bathroom

and went to see what they wanted me to do with it, where to take it. We did see four of the other puppies. One has already been adopted out and another had just left with someone who is fostering it until it gets adopted. They asked me if I would please keep it over the weekend as the vet was about to close for the day but if I ran by there right away they would give me some flea and tick repellent/killer which we did.

We came home and I gave that dirty smelly dog a bath and Jade took him outside to dry in the sun before I put the flea stuff on him.

It didn't take that little dog long to decide that being around humans inside with food and water and affection was far better than the life he had been living. Later in the afternoon, he was exploring around the house and climbed in the box for paper recycling and took a nap.

Minnie spent most of the day Saturday either barking at the puppy or being annoyed when he would take her toys and chew sticks.

I let him use Minnie's little bed which she never gets in anymore but he ended up sleeping with Jade Saturday night. Sunday morning, her dad showed up, who is a sucker for puppies, to go work on their property and within 10 minutes he's got Sarah on the phone telling her about the new dog. I could hear her on the phone...NO NO NO NO NO. They already have two dogs and two cats and are getting ready to move this summer and, as she says, she's having a hard enough time finding a place with the animals they already have. A few hours later, after I returned from picking Marc up from the airport, my daughter showed up with the other two grandgirls and one of their friends and that puppy's butt did not touch the ground again until they all left.

Last night I closed him up in the little bathroom when I went to bed and of course he started crying and then Minnie started barking because his crying upset her so I ended up opening the door and sleeping in the back bedroom where I could talk to him until he settled down.

He's a smart little dog and except for a couple of instances right at first, he does his business on newspaper during the night and outdoors during the day as long as he has access to it so I am keeping the screen door propped open. Good thing the weather is nice.

And he and Minnie are getting along. She wants to play and he does in his clumsy puppy way while she bounces all around him.

The cat, however, is not amused.

I'm taking him to the vet today and dropping him off. The people at SPOT have asked me if I would consider fostering him until he gets adopted out, about 4 – 6 weeks currently she said as puppies adopt out faster. I have considered it and as long as I had a house full of teenage girls to deal with him I thought I would but cooler heads have prevailed and to tell the truth, I don't think I'm up to house training and socializing another puppy. We're going to be starting that big job soon that I keep talking about as we have received our purchase order and are just waiting on the deposit check and when we do, I really won't have the time or attention for a puppy.