rescuing more dogs

Well, it's happened again. Unowned dumped dogs showed up in the yard. This time it was a brindle with some bulldog or pit bull in her with two puppies in my garage at my back door trying to get in with Minnie going nuts. They fled before her ferociousness but not far. My new neighbors on the other side of Allen, who owns the 1/2 acre between us and our new neighbors who bought Frank of the Bountiful Garden's house, do not care for the dog situation out here. They are newly transplanted from the city. I don't know if that's what accounts for some of their weirdness or not since I was once, not that long ago, newly transplanted from the city but I don't think I am fundamentally different than I was but that's beside the point. What was the point? Oh, right, weirdness and neighbors. The last time a couple of weeks ago two dogs were out running around and got into their garage, both of them were threatening to shoot them (they make no bones about being gun owners) if they came in their garage again. What the fuck is the matter with people who think killing something that annoyed you is the right and first response. My response was there are alternatives like contacting the rescue group that is very good about picking up and placing these poor animals, resources permitting. Turns out, those two dogs were the loved pets of a couple that went out of town and the dogs got out while they were gone.

So then after I closed the door to the garage and waited 10 minutes or so I crept out the back door and around to peer into the garage to see if they were still there and I saw one of my new neighbors on his back patio who yelled something at me which I didn't catch (the dogs were not in my garage) and the mother dog was running for the street and I looked around to see his counterpart holding a pipe or something with some kind of wire wrapped around it with two puppies at her feet in Allen's yard. She disentangled herself and the puppies stayed there at the back of Allen's property by his skiff on a trailer.

I contacted the the dog rescue group for the county, SPOT, and while I was corresponding with them I saw that Robert, new neighbor, had driven his truck into Allen's yard and was standing next to his truck, puppies deeper amongst the storage buildings at the back of the property. I don't know what he was doing, perhaps taking pictures because the SPOT lady told me a neighbor had also sent pictures of the puppies in. When I was ready to close up last night both puppies were in the garage sitting at the door to the house. I made Marc go run them off. The black puppy fled, the tan one did not and hunkered down over by a cabinet. Short of picking it up and removing it, it would not be dislodged.

I hate this! It pisses me off that people won't be responsible for the animals they acquire. If you can't keep them for whatever reason, man or woman up and do the right thing. Surrender them to a shelter. Dumping them 'in the country' is not a solution! It is cruel and resigns them to a life of hardship, hunger, injury, disease, parasites, and uncontrolled breeding creating feral dog packs that are dangerous if they aren't caught and placed or killed.

Last night both puppies sheltered in the garage which I left open in case mom came back looking for them but there they were this morning. I gave them some water and food and cleaned up the messes they left. One male, one female, still fairly clean and soft but bloated stomachs so wormy, friendly, desperate for human attention. One welcoming word and they were wriggling all over my feet and jumping on me.

Christine, from SPOT, finally got permission to come pick them up which she did. They will get shipped up to Washington state where there is a shortage of puppies due to their strict laws about breeding and selling. SPOT has sent hundreds of puppies to them to get adopted out and it helps with the older dogs that get turned in because they also get seen when they have puppies. Often the puppies already have homes waiting for them when they get there.

So, another happy ending for the puppies at least. Not so much for me. My cat Emma has gone missing. Haven't seen her since Saturday early afternoon before the dogs showed up.