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Our Mystery Bastard Child
About a week ago, my roommate and I walked out the door to get me to work. As is my usual fashion, I was already going to be about ten minutes late (they call it FASHIONABLE people.) I noticed a dog running around, with a harness and leash, but no person in sight. It was only a few houses away and I knew I couldn't leave the dog alone to get hit by a car. I figured it belonged in the house whose front lawn it was on, and this would be a quick solve. Boy, was I wrong.
He was romping with some stray cats and about to get seriously booped on the nose. It was adorable. So I went over, and he play ran away from me. I determine that he does not, indeed, belong in that house. Long story short, we get the little fucker in the car and he's actually quite sweet. A 3 month old puppy, judging by his teeth and general awkwardness, yet he was taller than and weighed more than our 6 month old puppy.
As Mike and I are former animal control volunteers and animal lovers in general, we did what every responsible person would do. We took him in and set about finding his rightful owners. We had him scanned for a micro-chip. Nope. Went to the city of Austin and had them post a thing on their site. Nada. We posted an ad on Criagslist. Zilch. We then identified his breed and set about locating rescues as he had a higher chance of survival with these.
(I get it, Austin is no-kill. But the sad truth of it is, specific breed rescues operate with much more money and time on their hands and dogs tend to go to higher income houses through these. Little dude was a Pyrenees, and therefore was going to be a BIG dude. Someone needed to know what they were getting into when taking him on, and we figured this was our best option.)
Once we found a woman willing to foster him, we decided to hold onto him for about a week to see if anyone would reply and claim him as their own. No one did. During this time, we noticed flyers near our neighborhood, that had been up since before we found him. The flyers were a picture of the dog (who we now referred to as Tim? in a reference to Monty Python) tied up in a backyard with a cross street to indicate where he was. Putting together the context clues, we realized that this dog had been lost not once, but TWICE now, and no one was looking for him. We went home and hugged the poor thing, because clearly no one else cared.
Now, we already have 6 pets. It's a 50/50 split of cats v. dogs, and let me tell you, it is hard. I would never get rid of any of my pets, but IT IS HARD. And you think, how much more could one dog be?
A LOT.
Tim? whined. Tim? barked. Tim? peed. Tim? fought for food with our current dogs, who were absolutely THRILLED to have another dog in the house I assure you.
And the cats? Oh, yeah. They were fine with it, too. They spent the entire time in the garage so that Tim? could have more room, as they wanted to make him feel very welcome.
He finally left to go to a loving foster home with other Pyrenees yesterday, and as much as I miss the little bugger, Mike reminds me of how awful it was having four dogs by barking like Tim? every now and then. Thanks for that, Mike.
The moral of the story is: being a good person will only disrupt your sleep and make your carpets smell bad.
Comments
On Mon, Oct 1, 2012 at 3:01 PM, Riahsaurify said:
I want a big lovey dog :c Even if he makes my carpets smell bad.
On Sun, Sep 30, 2012 at 10:18 AM, Phillip said:
Kudos to you, Knox! I'm a nearly fanatical animal lover (I've never met an animal that wasn't better than 85% of the people I know, save for a mean-ass parrot that was the dictionary definition of "mean-spirited asshole") and, even though I'm a cat guy and not a dog guy, I'd like to think I would have done the same thing.
On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 10:29 PM, Jesse24 said:
We do the same thing every time we find a dog roaming around the only time we have not is when I got attacked on a jog with two of my dogs. Dog that attacked me was a Ridgeback, you would think "shit that sucks" except I was running with a Pit/Rott and a Presa Canario. Ridgeback was not hurt and I was not hurt but it soon learned that just because you're big does not mean you want any part of attacking a dog like this' owner. Being that Ziggy was about 9 months at this point and 119lbs.
But every other dog I have come across running free we check to see if theyre chipped and try to get them to their homes.
It does suck though when people have such great pets and do not care when they go missing.
On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 12:12 PM, KnoxWashEllewynnDominoDaddybearPips said:
Thank you Tetsujin. I now crave cherry pie and will have to settle for a flav-or-ice while i do art and watch twin peaks in the background.
On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 12:10 PM, Tetsujin 28-go said:
@Knox: Also, Agent Cooper's favorite pie was cherry pie.
On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 12:07 PM, Tetsujin 28-go said:
@KnoxWashEllewynnDominoDaddybearPips: Yes, yes it is. Twin Peaks is a damn fine show.
On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 10:11 AM, KnoxWashEllewynnDominoDaddybearPips said:
@Tetsujin
Please tell me that's a Twin Peaks reference, I can't remember what his favorite pie is.
@hateyouhumans
I feel like my karma is constantly zeroing out. Save a stray dog, yell about how people need to stop making babies. It's a delicate balance.
On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 10:04 AM, hateyouhumans said:
You Have Karma to Burn! Kudos.
On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 10:02 AM, Tetsujin 28-go said:
I've heard that virtue is its own reward, but I find that coffee and cherry pie is better.