Neighborhood Watch

While on my lunch, I managed to find and befriend a dog, meet some more neighbors, text a picture to the wrong number, speak to a stranger on the phone, become mixed up in a neighborhood mini-feud, and get myself invited to a Christmas party. Naturally, it all started with the dog.


Since moving to our new house, I generally try to come home for lunch on days that I know no one will be home. It gives the dogs a break and I can eat left-overs while doing a load of laundry or dishes. On this day, as usual, I drove up to collect the mail and rounded the corner to turn around when I saw a large-ish dog in our neighbor, B’s yard. I knew that wasn’t her dog and this one not only had no collar or tags but heavily resembled a dog I had seen posted as lost on Facebook. The only problem is that I couldn’t search and find that Facebook page, so I started texting the picture around hoping to get some assistance. The dog and I were around the corner from my house and he seemed hesitant to take a ride in the truck so I began motioning to people driving by, “Is this your dog? Do you know this dog?”

You always carry those tasty treats, Strange Lady?

My accosting paid off in that one guy called his wife to come outside, she called the neighbor whose yard I saw the dog in and left a message while another neighbor finally drove by who knew the dog. In the meantime, I found the FB page and texted the picture accidently to the wrong number and then to the right number. I followed that up with a voicemail and the lady called me back to say she had found her 14 year old boxer mix but thanked me for calling her. Also by now B was home and shouting to us that we should call “Animal Rescue” but the other neighbor was returning the dog.

I haven't missed many meals.

I extricated myself from B who was intent on telling me what a nice person I was, how nice I looked and how pretty my purse is while saying that Animal Rescue needed to be called because her dog gets upset when dogs run loose in the neighborhood and something about other dogs in the neighborhood that have been loose…and some mention of racial profiling.

Back at home, my boys got their potty break and I was shoving some lunch down my pie hole when the doorbell rang. It turned out to be the neighbor who returned the dog, to apologize if she was brusque but that there were things going on in the neighborhood that were annoying and she didn’t want me to be offended. We had a nice chat about dogs, rescue, Allen County SPCA and the other shelter. It turns out the wayward dog belongs to her neighbor and it is microchipped because of its tendency to run loose. After we’d chatted about all manner of dogs she invited me to a Christmas party she is hosting. Apparently it is an annual event that has been occurring for 40 years and I might even meet the founder if we attend.

Sounds like it might be a good time and just for insurance I got the name of the dog. You never know who you might meet.

Mondays...

Well folks, another Monday, another fun hangover for the Ray-Ray. 

"You go on to work, Mama, I'll just be right here."

Ray and I spent most of Saturday cleaning, sorting and organizing things.  We're planning to declutter a lot and will be having a garage sale to get rid of all of the crap treasures that this family has accumulated.  I feel singularly smug because I am a pretty good purger.  I stick pretty close to the one year rule for the most part and give away a lot of things as I go along so I rarely have to deal with the bin upon bin of clothes coming out of storage.  Except for shoes, I do love and hang on to my shoes but hey, everyone has a vice, right?

Sunday our plan was that we would get a lot of other things done around the house.  The Hubby and I are replacing the kitchen sink, faucet and garbage disposal, so we purchased those and brought them home but rather than get it all hooked up we ended up with an impromptu neighbor gathering on the patio.  Ray hadn't really seen these neighbors since last summer/fall so it was great to see him being so well behaved and mature.  He did ask everyone to play tug with him and some people did.  I kept an eye out for energy and excitement levels and broke up anything that looked to become out of hand.  We are always careful when engaging in tug games with Ray that we keep hands off him.  We tug the rope with him but do not rub his head or face while tugging.  Unfortunately one person did not abide by this and the fun police had to step in. 

All in all, we had a good time and Ray is recouperating nicely from all the funs.

Rough Housing

Puppies play rough.  I’m not talking about Pitbull puppies specifically, just puppies in general.  When they are still with their litter, they learn certain boundaries of play like when to back off and when to continue with the help of little yelps and other body language signals.  After being separated from the litter, continuing with the yelps helps the puppy know and learn new boundaries with their new human pack.  While I find this continued training to be slow going, I am also finding it to be successful.  When Ray was much smaller, and his teeth were like the jagged metal blade of a table saw, his bites were pretty potent and we made sure to keep lots of chew toys handy.  Now, the biting/gnawing is becoming infrequent and much softer allowing for a nice healing period for my hands and feet.  I can tell when he’s getting tired because that is in direct proportion to the pressure and frequency of the nips he administered.  Last night I actually said to him, “You’re getting cranky, it’s time for night-night.”  Upon hearing that, he ran to his crate door and waited for his three sugar snap peas.  (Bedtime snack.)

Sometimes it’s more difficult to tell, though, when play becomes too rough.  This weekend we had friends and neighbors over to enjoy some libations on St. Paddy’s Day.  It’s funny because all three of us couples had no dogs about six months ago and now we all have puppies.  One person brought her 8 year old chihuahua for a short time and the neighbors brought their mini American Eskimo who is nine weeks old and had met Ray only one other time with little success. 

Coby at 6 weeks

Coby was only home for a day when he me Ray with the big bruiser paws and had already decided that Ray was not going to be his kind of dog. Three weeks later, though, the little pouf was much more outgoing and ready to play. 

As sometimes happens, play got exciting and Coby’s mom picked him up to calm down.  No one yelped, no one seemed to want to get away from anyone else, but still a couple of bite marks on a snout (muzzle?) resulted in some blood.  I’m sure you can guess where this is headed…



Your pouf bit my Pitbull

...or maybe not.  All in all, no one was harmed and I didn't even know Ray had gotten scraped by the baby teeth until a bit later.  From the looks of it, Coby got a nice grab on both the top and side of Ray's muzzle, but like I said, there was no yelping etc, so no signs of harm.  Coby's mom was all worried that Ray was hurt, but after all, it takes quite a bit to harm the anvil-head.