Almost a bad day

I almost lost Missy today.  When I took the trash out, Jock shot out the door with me.  Jock is not a problem and I caught him quickly.  But Missy had also shot out the door and did not stop.  She has never done that before.  I threw Jock in the house and took off after Missy.  I couldn't find her.  I went back and go my car and drove around the neighborhood for 3 hours.  I kept calling the shelter.  I finally got someone at 11.  I told her what had happened in between sobs.  I described Missy to her to a T.  She told me that someone had just brought her in.  I was  so happy.  I headed for the bank and then took off for the shelter.  They sent me to the kennel to make sure it was Missy.  I walked into the shelter and looked straight back and saw her in the kennel.  She got off the bed and came to the bars.  She was so glad to see me.  I went back to the office and paid the pick-up fee.  The receptionist called to have Missy brought to me.  I went out to open the car door.  As the girl was walking across the grassy area with Missy, Missy either spotted me or smelled me because she picked up the pace and could not wait to get to me.  I took the leash off and handed it back.  And I put Missy in the car on a quilt I had brought for her.  The girl tried to give me back the leash telling me I would need it when I got home.  Nope.  I have a scarf and that is all I will need.  I drove Missy home, opened the car door, got her out and led her to the house.  She came in the front door, headed for the water bowl, then wanted to go outside.  I took her out back.  She came back in, climbed on the couch and went to sleep.  She woke up when I was fixing their dinner.  She ate, went back outside, came in, got back on the couch and is still asleep.  From now on, I will just assume she will dart out the door.  I will make sure this never happens again.  I won't have her end her day in fear.  Or hungry. Or being mistreated.  She has been with me since she was a puppy about 10 months old.  She has never been mistreated.  She has never been hungry.  She was not even punished when she ate the sheetrock in the dining room when she was still a puppy. 

Usless humans

Yesterday, I was working outside and missed a call from an older relative.  This relative has MS and is disabled.  She walks with a walker.  She can only be on her feet for a short time.  She has an older dog and three cats.  She pays someone to walk the dog while I am at work.  Well, I tried calling her back and got no answer.  I tried for about 20 minutes and finally hopped in my car and went over to her townhome.  She was sitting on her little front porch with a neighbor's two kids, aged 9 and about 3, with a yellow lab puppy on a leash.  She has this porch enclosed with a banister and gate made with lattice work.  We did this so her dog could not just take off when she brought her outside.  So I walk up, look at her, the kids, and the puppy who was about 4 months old and weighing in  at around 20-25 pounds.  I asked who owned the puppy.  My relative told me that the boy had found the puppy and his mother had brought it down to my relative.  Oh, hell no!  I was having none of this.  Then my relative told me that the kids' mother had gone back to their town house to call the dog catcher.  This woman has a cell phone, but she went back to her town home to use her house phone.  So, I am telling my relative that there is no way she is going to take the puppy.  Then the mother walks up, says that the dog catcher will be there when he gets there and she has to go to the store..  I told my relative to go inside.  When she went inside, I told the mother that there was no way my relative was going to take the puppy.  That her son had picked up the puppy and it was her responsibility.  She told me she only wanted my relative to watch the puppy while she went to the store.  She had brought the puppy directly to my relative as soon as her son showed up with it.  I am pretty sure she told her kids that they would give it to Miss Elizabeth and the kids could come to her house to play with it.  I could tell that she was  not telling me the truth.  So I told her she needed to take the puppy to her house to wait for the dog catcher.  Her reply was "Oh well we will just wait here.  Miss Elizabeth's porch makes a nice playpen for the puppy.  My reply, " No.  Take it home.
My relative is 68 years old, is just short of a wheel chair and has to pay someone to walk her do and this woman, without any twinge of guilt whatsoever, was going to dump the puppy on her.  I was so mad it took me all night to calm down.  I did stay and make sure she took the puppy to her house, but she did not take it inside.  She kept telling me that she only wanted Miss Elizabeth to watch it while she went to the store.  It was already 4pm.  She would have dumped the puppy and not come back.  I knew it and she knew I knew it.  There has to be a special place in hell for people like this.  I have made it plain that if any of the residents over there try to foist an animal onto my relative, I will key their cars, put sugar in the gas tank and scoop up all the dog poop I can find and dump it on their doorsteps. 

When my relative moved there, there were around 15 feral cats living in and near the complex.  Being the soft heart she is, my relative spent her own money trapping, vaccinating, and spaying and neutering all these cats.  She spent over $1500 on this and not a damn one of these fine residents offered her a dime.  But then they bragged about getting them fixed.  So I called them out on it and told them that had it been left to all the trash that lived there, those cats would still be having 3 litters a year.  What made this so bad is that my relative spent a sleepless night worrying about the puppy.  It is fine and I was at the shelter today and was told that it would become the property of the shelter at 2:30 pm tomorrow and they already had applications for it, so it is going to be ok.  But I am still pissed.

Duncan

Duncan was demanding I pick him up this afternoon.  I did.  But that did not make him happy.  I finally figured out that he wanted his sweater on.  He was cold.  He is so tiny, only weighs in at 4.5 pounds so he gets cold.  Jock does too, but he refuses to wear a sweater.  He will even growl at me if I try to put it on him.  Abby as like that except when it was really cold.  Then she wanted her sweater.  I miss her every day.  I miss Daisy too.  Every time I lose one of my friends, they take a piece of me with them and I never really recover.  But I would never have a life without them.  It would be too bleak. 

My Zoo

I spent my night as usual with Jock curled up next to me, Duncan next to him, Sally on my pillow and Spats all over the bed all night.  I go to bed around 8-9 and get up at 6.  I may, if lucky, get 6 hours sleep.  Spats drives me nuts.  Picasso sometimes gets on the bed, but he prefers the big, overstuffed chair in the living room.  He and Van curl up there together.  Missy has the couch.  Might as well as she is slowly eating it anyway.  I refuse to re-upholster while Missy is still here.  I told my daughter that she had better cozy up to her niece because when Missy outlives both me and my daughter, my granddaughter will have to take up the mantel of caring for her.  She is 17 and is not slowing down.  Honey does not want to be anywhere but her crate in her cozy blanket.  I never close the door to the crate and this is her safe spot. I gave it to her as soon as I brought her into the house and she was so little.  She would curl up in that blanket and sleep most of the day away because she was almost starved to death when I found her.  It took awhile for her to put on weight and gain strength and she hasn't slowed down since.  I am so glad I found her even though I was not ready for another dog.  She is so cute and sweet.  I really love my zoo.  All of them..