{"id":5899,"date":"2012-09-05T07:26:42","date_gmt":"2012-09-05T14:26:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=5899"},"modified":"2012-09-06T05:52:51","modified_gmt":"2012-09-06T12:52:51","slug":"mistakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=5899","title":{"rendered":"Mistakes."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It was a big mistake.\u00a0 The kind of mistake that you look back and say, “Why did we do that?”\u00a0 But, of course, we didn’t know.\u00a0 How could we?<\/p>\n

We didn’t know that morning when we had a bunch of kids over to play that he would arrive.\u00a0 We didn’t know until they started yelling that there was a loose dog in the yard, that he was here.\u00a0 And we didn’t realize we would have bigger concerns than whether or not he was chasing chickens in the end.<\/p>\n

The kids flew out the door which, in retrospect, seems like a foolhardy thing to do with a random, loose dog.\u00a0 But my kids grew up around dogs and they seemed fully capable of hollering off a dog that was chasing the hens.\u00a0 But he wasn’t chasing the hens.\u00a0 Or barking through the fence at Bruno, the livestock guardian dog.\u00a0 Or even remotely interested in our German Shepherds pacing in the backyard at the scent of him.\u00a0 When I finally got up to check on the proceedings he was sitting in a circle of children, getting kisses and head rubs, and showing them he knew how to “shake.”<\/p>\n

It was a huge mistake.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Not because he was an intact male dog with a thick squat body or huge block head that indicated the kind of breed everyone warns you about.\u00a0 After all, my kids grew up with a Rottweiler.\u00a0 A couple of the kids present have a father who works in the K-9 unit and owns some loving yet fierce German Shepherds.\u00a0 Several other kids have their own pitt bull mixes at home.\u00a0 No, once I saw his behavior, his breed didn’t worry me and once we knew he didn’t care about chasing chickens or harassing the livestock, I was content to let the kids visit with him and include him in their activities for the day.\u00a0 I figured he would go home when he was ready.<\/p>\n

Mistake.<\/p>\n

Because he didn’t go home.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>And after our friends left, The Other Half checked with all the neighbors to see who the dog belonged to.\u00a0 When we found the owners, who lived down the street, they weren’t at home.\u00a0 So we brought our dogs in the house and put him in the backyard with a biscuit to hang out safely until his owners were home.\u00a0 It’s what I would want someone to do if they found our dogs running loose.\u00a0 After all, we live off a winding country road where speeding cars make road kill out of pets every day of the week.\u00a0 Plus, some people will shoot a loose dog that looks like a certain breed, just out of fear.<\/p>\n

He hung out in the back yard, getting pats on the head as we went about our business and when the rain moved in, he snuggled in the kids’ play fort and waited it out comfortably.<\/p>\n

Mistake.<\/p>\n

Because when the owners finally got home, turns out they weren’t too surprised he was loose.\u00a0 And they weren’t so eager to have him brought home.\u00a0 And they mentioned he was hard for them to handle and suggested we keep him.\u00a0 And when we insisted he was their dog so he should be with them, they shrugged and pointed to an old cobwebbed kennel.\u00a0\u00a0 And when he didn’t want to go in the kennel and was determined to follow us back home, they sighed and gave us an old rope that we could tie him up with.\u00a0 They said he didn’t have a collar (we had figured that like with most lost dogs, he had simply pulled out of it) so that would have to do.\u00a0 And we left him there. Tied with a rope around his neck, with people that didn’t want him, watching us leave.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It gave us that sad little feeling you have when you see animals in dire straits.\u00a0 And you tell yourself you can’t save every animal and you owe it to the animals that you have chosen in your life not to overextend yourself trying to rescue every critter and you think that owners have to step up themselves and take responsibility for their pets and you remind yourself of all the bad things that could happen when you bring an unknown adult animal with his own complicated history into the mix and, so, you walk away.\u00a0 With that little sinking feeling in your chest.<\/p>\n

And you pretend that you are not that excited to see him show up on the doorstep the next day.\u00a0 With a chewed up rope around his neck.<\/p>\n

Well, some of us pretend.\u00a0 The children rushed out with hugs and kisses and shook hands with him and had a hundred schemes on how he could be their dog.<\/p>\n

Mistake.<\/p>\n

All that loving was what got us in trouble.\u00a0 Why would he go home to where he wasn’t wanted when he could come here and be treated like visiting royalty?\u00a0 Add in the biscuits we gave him in the back yard and we had really, really, messed up.\u00a0 Because he wasn’t going home to stay.\u00a0 And you can damn sure bet they weren’t coming over looking for him.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>But he can’t stay here.\u00a0 Our dogs have been together since they were puppies—-they are litter mates.\u00a0 They aren’t good with other dogs.\u00a0 And an intact male dog would be sure to introduce dominance issues.\u00a0 Plus, he has an alarming habit of jumping on Little because, of course, he is the littlest.\u00a0 He just wants to play and it’s something that you could safely break in a puppy, but it’s dangerous with an adult dog of unknown temperament and even though he is all about hugs and kisses, he might not be pleased with a knee in the chest to keep him down.\u00a0 He follows everyone readily, but the minute you put\u00a0 a leash on him, he gets tense and still and reuctant to be led.\u00a0 Leashes are a necessary part of dog ownership—there are trips to the vet and being taken on walks and a million other reasons that a dog needs\u00a0to accept the leash.\u00a0 Especially an intact male who is likely to hightail it after the first female in heat in a 10 mile radius.\u00a0 Plus, although his toenails look well-kept and his teeth are shiny white, he has a bit of mucous in his eyes.\u00a0 Could be just a bit of crud from being outside for days on end, could be conjunctivitis, could be a chronic issue.\u00a0 Really, who knows?<\/p>\n

That’s the thing about him—-who knows?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>That, of course, will be his downfall.\u00a0 You can’t expect a family to take him on when they really don’t know him.\u00a0 The shelters are not going to keep him when they can’t say they know him either.\u00a0 Animal control can be called and the owners can be fined but it won’t keep them from surrendering him to be euthanized or dropping him off in some other part of the country, where the cycle will be repeated again.\u00a0 Sooner or later, that not knowing is going to be the end of him.<\/p>\n

So, loving him, even for a couple of days, was a big mistake.\u00a0 Letting him walk the kids down to the bus in the morning and meet them at the bus stop in the afternoon was fun.\u00a0 Rubbing his big blocky head in our laps, until he started to doze was cute.\u00a0 Shaking his paw was adorable.\u00a0 Accepting his kisses that were so delicate, despite those big slobbery jowls, was sweet.<\/p>\n

But it was a mistake.<\/p>\n

Because we know he’s a good dog.\u00a0 And we know he doesn’t stand a chance.\u00a0 And we have to live with it.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow we will contact the local no-kill shelter to see if they’re willing to accept him.\u00a0 I will try the pitt bull and boxer ( we think that’s what he is a mixture of) rescues to see if they have room.\u00a0 He has a slim, slim\u00a0chance of finding a home where they will be happy to shake his paw and let him lean against their legs while scratching his ears.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Losing such a sweet and big-hearted dog is a mistake for this world.\u00a0 But it looks like it’s a mistake that he just might not be able to avoid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was a big mistake.\u00a0 The kind of mistake that you look back and say, “Why did we do that?”\u00a0 But, of course, we didn’t know.\u00a0 How could we? We didn’t know that morning when we had a bunch of kids over to play that he would arrive.\u00a0 We didn’t know until they started yelling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5899"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5934,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5899\/revisions\/5934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}