A Rant (Or In This Case A Major Pet Peeve)

This is not a tale about how pets peeve me, but more about pet owners.

Specifically our former neighbors.

Yes, the ones that lived next door who we thought were so good to keep the house in good shape and not bring down the neighborhood with trash and dog poo smells wafting over into our yard, lawns gone to seed, etc. The ones that stopped up all the holes their dogs dug under our joint fence when we told them about them.

Alas, I'm afraid we spoke too soon.

Because the garbage cans left by the curb all week, and the completely darkened house without so much as a porch light on, did not, in fact, mean that the neighbors were simply gone away for a Christmas Vacation as we'd assumed at first.

Because after they'd been gone a couple of days, this showed up at our back door:

Yes, our neighbors took the Pit Bull puppy responsible for all the digging, but for unknown reasons left behind their Pomeranian.

Hunger had driven the dog (who in his abandoned state has became an oddly quiet, forlorn little thing) to dig under our fence and hop around at our glass sliding door looking for handouts. We assumed that it had just eaten up all of what it's owners had left for it, and so after Jeff got him back in his own yard, we put out some water and food for it. Jeff reported that the dog lapped up all the water right away, poor thing.

Raisin was not amused by this dogs presence in her yard, having already been so imposed upon already by the pit bull puppy from that same yard, but wasn't quite sure what to do with the little ball of fluff.

But when we returned from a trip to Jeff's sisters and found Upon closer inspection, we learned that the neighbors had been evicted.

And left their dog behind. Without food, water or shelter.

That is what peeves me.

Irresponsible and neglectful pet owners take second place only to irresponsible and negelctful parents in my book.

If you're not going to commit to taking care of your pets for life, then you have no business ever becoming a pet owner to begin with. Because those little animals come to depend upon you for their needs, and when irresponsible or uncaring pet owners no longer provide for those needs, these critters die senseless, and often inhumane deaths. Grrrrr.

What is especially unnerving to me is that in this case the dog was trapped (save for being able to dig under to our yard) in the back yard of that home, and basically left to die. No food, water or shelter...in the winter. That pretty much meant certain death for the little dog.

But a sense of compassion for his plight, as well as the sense of obligation (in spite of it's recent ungracious behavior towards me) led us to give it some food and water for a couple of days, assuming he'd just eaten all his up while his owners were gone.

When we learned of the eviction, however, we went a couple steps further and put some bedding in a box in a sheltered corner for it to keep warm in, and gave it plenty more food and water. The little thing actually looked grateful.

This led us to try and decide what must be done with the abandoned dog that was fast beginning to grow on us.

Because it was so good with our toddler, we initially, we thought of keeping it, but for the fact that Raisin was just too rough with the dog.

It's really a very cute dog, and I hated to think of calling Animal control and risk getting the poor little guy put down if he wasn't adopted in X amount of days, especially after it had dug under our fence to get help.

Oh, the guilt!

I'm such a sucker.

So we began a bit of a campaign, putting the word out with our family and friends, asking if anyone wanted this cute little Pomeranian.

In the end, it happened that Jeff's brother Butch came to the rescue. His wife Frances' pet rabbit died about a month or so ago, and though they'd replaced it with a new rabbit and are also currently rabbit-sitting for their neighbors, my brother-in-law told Jeff that he'd been thinking of getting a little dog for his wife for a while, and they'd be interested in seeing it.

When we brought the dog to him Sunday morning, he'd already been to the store to buy some small dog food and doggie biscuits. He was really serious about this.

The one condition was that the dog would have to get along with the pet rabbit, who has free reign in their backyard during the day. The dog got very excited at first when the rabbit began hopping through the yard, and gave chase. Butch told the dog "No" in a very firm voice, and though the dog growled at him initially as though to say, "You're not the boss of me", it knew a losing battle when it saw one, and quit chasing the rabbit.

As of last evening, the dog and rabbit were contentedly curled up together asleep in my brother-in-laws living room. My sister-in-law Frances was delighted with the cute little guy, and took to him immediately.

Whew! Disaster averted. And a happy ending to what could have been a very sad story.