3 posts tagged “dogs”

Mom, are you done blogging yet?

So, a few weeks ago, I got a call from T while I was at work saying we'd acquired another dog.  He'd been on our main road, which is narrow, winding, shoulderless, and where people usually go about 45 MPH, and he'd spotted this dog in the middle of the road.  He screeched to a stop, as did others, but when he opened his tailgate the dog just hopped right on in.  No collar, no tags (the choke chain in the picture is one of ours), but he was obviously someone's dog.  Apparently, T had already called animal control, but it was a Friday night and too late for them to come out and pick him up, so we'd need to keep him overnight.  I said I'd be home to meet the new guy soon.

When I got home, T had been keeping them in the yard or on the decks, and Cara was just crazy about him.  He was snuffling around in the leaves, and she was tearing up and down the hillside, trying to get him to chase her.  It was really funny to watch.  After talking about it, we decided we could have him in the house for the night.  Apparently, while on the decks, he'd picked up how to use the doggie door almost immediately from watching our old pros.  We hoped that it would occur to him that he could use them to go potty outside during the night.

Before making dinner and retiring to the couch for the evening, we took him on a quick walk around the "neighborhood", to see if anyone would recognize him.  We live on the edge of town, where there are side roads with 5-10 houses on them, but they don't connect.  People have lived here forever and know everyone on their street, so we basically picked one house per street and asked if they recognized the dog.  We took the first 3 streets downhill from ours, risking our lives by walking along the edge of the main road to get to them. 

Axel 2

The dog was really good on a leash, very sweet, and everyone remarked on how cute he was, but no one recognized him.  We even flagged down a passing UPS driver, thinking he'd see everyone's dogs, but he didn't recognize this guy.

I made a quick sign for the end of the road saying we'd found a sharpei, and then we took him home.  Once he was in the house, Cara was totally freaked out by him and felt she needed to dominate him and protect us, but he and Diezel seemed to get along just fine.  The two of them started playing and wrestling, and they were being really good together.  You can see from the "smiley" picture of him, this sharpei was a total sweetie.  He really wanted to play, but he had a very gentle mouth, never bit down on hands, and most of the time his lips kinda covered his teeth even when his mouth was open, anyway.  He was kinda dirty and he had a few scars, but it looked like he'd been stitched up and he was very well fed, so we assumed he'd just gotten out that day.  He asked to go out a few times, which was at least a good sign that he was housebroken, and so we just eventually all went to bed.

In the morning, T got a call back from animal control saying the dog fit the description of Axel, a sharpei that'd picked up a few times already who lived close to us.  They gave us the owner's phone number, T called and left a message, and the owner called back a little while later saying he'd be over for Axel.

Axel 3

The owner showed up so fast, I was still getting out of my PJs, but I got outside for the end of the conversation with him.  He told us he lived on the next street uphill from us, he and T chatted for a while since he's also in construction and has a Ford, and then they took off.  According to T, he was glad to see Axel, but didn't seem overly worried about him and had the impression that if we hadn't held onto him, Axel would have wandered home on his own.  Which may very well have been true.

Well, the next day, guess who was sitting outside the door waiting to come in when we got up?  We left him outside for an hour or so because we didn't want to encourage him, and then when it was time for our w-a-l-k at the p-a-r-k (words that must be spelled in this house), we put Axel in the back of the pickup and dropped him at his house.  We didn't see him after that, so we figured he'd gotten the message and maybe he wouldn't come by anymore.

Well, then we got back from the park yesterday evening and Axel was waiting for us in the yard.  Fortunately, he was wearing a collar this time.  I opened the door and he slipped into the house and went right for the food dishes, of course.  I hollered some, and eventually I had to drag him out by the collar.  It's not that I want to be mean, but I am scaredof him crossing that busy road to get to our place, and I really don't want to give him a reason to come over.  We came in and just left him outside, with him barking in the yard and Cara barking at him from the deck for a while.  Eventually, we figured he'd go home.

Well, several hours later, at 8 pm, he was still barking nearby.  T got in the truck and drove him back home again, and this time his owner was very thankful.  He's such a cutie, I'd love to have him come over to play regularly, but like I said, I don't want him crossing the road alone.  Hopefully his owner will do like we did when we found out our dogs were travelling further than we expected, and he'll start keeping closer tabs on him.  He's such a sweetheart!  We don't want anything to happen to him.

Ok, I am inspired to ask everyone what their favorite Christmas gift was this year, and why?  If you tell me, then I'll tell you!

While you're thinking, here are a few cute puppy pics to keep you entertained.  *smile*

Squirrel watching

Lazy dog

Cara antler 001

Sexy Diezel 1

Cara and toy

So, I'm trying my hand at posting a video, since I was missing T and the pups tonight, and I came across an old video of Diesel and Cara chasing each other around the deck last summer.  When I took the video, I had been in the house hearing this funny tickey-tickety-tickety-tickety noise and decided to go investigate.  Notice that Cara, the water dog, can't resist jumping over or splashing in the kiddie pool on each go-round, and this was, ultimately, her undoing.