Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

Meet the Fairweathers

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Okay, I might have tricked you with that title. Maybe you’re thinking…hmmm, she got new neighbors? Are they DADO’s?

Or maybe you’ve been reading this blog so long, that you know Fairweathers, should really be Fair-weathers, or fair weathers. You know, those folks who only seem to come outside when the weather is…fair.

Perhaps you yourself are a Fair-weather. And that’s okay. What you do doesn’t bother me, it’s what the Fair-weathers in my neighborhood do that we’re talking about right now.

There are two kinds of Fair-weathers. The Dog Fair-weathers, who only walk their dogs in nice weather. And I’m proud to say, we don’t have a lot of those dog owners in my neighborhood. No, the dog owners in my neighborhood just never walk their dogs.  But they are DADO’s and we all know DADO’s are…well let’s be nice and say DADO’s are a special kind of people.

The other type of Fair-weather people, are the people who come out to bike, run, walk, but only in the nice weather.

Now you see why I’m calling these folks, Fair-weathers.

And truthfully, I don’t mind the folks who only go out when the weather is nice. Hell, if I didn’t have to walk two dogs, I’d probably be a Fair-weather myself. Or maybe I’d be a barfly, or an actress playing a barfly.

Who the hell am I kidding? I’d probably just stay in and be a couch potato.

But I digress.

Anyway, what I do mind about Fair-weathers is they seem to have forgotten, or perhaps they never knew the protocol about sharing the road with people and their dogs.

When I walk the dogs, or just walk in general, I try to walk facing oncoming traffic. Yes, there are places in my neighborhood where I have to disregard my rule, because of dogs, or people who hate me, but whenever I can, I face oncoming traffic. How else can you see what’s happening in enough time to try and avoid it?

Two weeks ago, this happened to Delilah (of course) and me.

We were on our evening walk, and going down a hill, when I heard some slapping behind me.  I turned around to see a jogger runner towards us. I quickly moved Delilah to the other side of the road, as I did not want the woman running past us, and startling Delilah. One never knows how a startled dog will react.

For the record, she never said a word. Didn’t acknowledge us in anyway. (At least the guy that was chasing her was kind enough to wave.)

Now when I’m coming up behind someone, I like to let them know. You know, so they don’t crap their pants, or a have a heart attack. Because I’ve wet my pants before and I’m telling you, it’s no fun. Nor is the walk home afterwards.

There’s that digression again…

The woman never said anything, not a word.

Now I’m thinking back to a story one of my neighbors told me two summers ago. Her daughter was out jogging and she came up behind a woman walking her dog. The girl called out hello to the woman, and went to pass her and the dog, and the dog bit the girl on the back of her leg. Right below the butt.  It was a pretty bad bite (from what I saw of the photos) and of course, there was a lot of drama, because, well you know….DADO’s. (If anyone wants to read that story, let me know, and I’ll schedule it for a future post.)

Beautiful photo editing and image lettering by the amazing Mary Hone.

Ever since I heard that story, I’ve tried to be aware of people coming up behind me, because I think it’s something that people just don’t think about.

When we walk, I will always cross the road to be on the opposite side of a walker, jogger, biker. And of course another dog. To me, it’s just being courteous, but it’s also looking out for my dog and making sure she doesn’t fail. Because if she fails, that means I’ve failed her.

And I don’t like failing.

So tell me, do you cross the road when you encounter someone, whomever it might be? Are my expectations of people and their behavior just too high? Is that do unto others saying just a load of bunk? Am I wasting my time trying to be nice in my neighborhood?

 

 

WTF Wednesday – The People In My Neighborhood

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You all know about the dog people in my neighborhood. There are a couple of somewhat savvy owners, but mostly….well, there’s no nice way to put this.

They’re dumb asses.

Oh yeah, it’s THAT post. Where I share an encounter with one of the dogs/DADO’s in my neighborhood.

We’ve had encounters with this dog TWICE before.  (You can read about them here: First Encounter and Second Encounter.)

The dog is outside constantly, and you can hear him barking as soon as you turn down the street. Apparently there are two gates, one on the side of the house where we walk, and one at the front of the house. When he sees something of interest to him, he runs between the two gates. Biting and jumping to secure his freedom.

It was early February, and about 5:30/5:45 in the evening. It was still dark, and Delilah and I were walking past the Jackal, and he was barking.

Of course.

We had just crossed in view of the gate, when from the corner of my right eye, I saw this white blur streaking towards us. I don’t think I had time to warn Delilah, it happened so fast. Suddenly The Beast was upon us.

Maybe he used his pea brain and jumped that gate.

Since it was dark, I have no idea how the Barbarian escaped the fence. Maybe he squeezed his fat ass out between the gate, or maybe he got lucky and jumped the fence.  How he managed is neither here nor there. He got out of the fence and attacked Delilah.

I have a routine when an off-leash dog is heading our way.

If I have notice, I stop walking, and take the wait and see approach. This gives me time to try and put some distance between us.

When I don’t have notice, (such was the case with Tito,) I do a number of things.

  • I shout. “STOP,” “NO,” “GO BACK,” “GET IN YOUR YARD.”
  • I puff myself up to try and look bigger.
  • I stamp my feet.
  • I will take a few steps towards the dog, while stamping my feet, puffing myself up, and shouting, “STOP,” “NO,” “GO BACK,” “GET IN YOUR YARD.”

Since Tito was already attacking Delilah, I started shouting, but that didn’t work. So I did the next best thing.

I screamed. I screamed as loud as I could.

And when I screamed I discovered two things.

  1. It doesn’t matter how loud you scream in my neighborhood in February, no-one is going to come help you.
  2. Even if you’ve used the bathroom BEFORE you went on your walk, the force of a scream has effects on your bladder that you were not even aware of.

Yeah, I peed my pants. Right there in the street.

Recap of what’s going on at this point. My dog is fighting on the side of the road with a little demon spawn, I am right next to her, screaming and wetting my pants and trying to get Delilah away from the spinning, biting Tasmanian Devil.

After I got over the shock of that first burst of urine, I figured, what the hell? I have nothing to lose, I’ve already pissed myself. So I kept screaming.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, but was really only a minute, two cars came up the road, and thankfully, the first car saw me and slowed to a stop.  It slowly inched forward and using the car as a barrier, I somehow managed to get Delilah across the street.

Neither of those cars stopped to see if me or my dog were okay.

When I looked back, Tito was nonchalantly taking a piss on the side of the road, acting like nothing happened.

Fucker.

Well you know the dog’s motto : If you can’t eat it or play with it, piss on it and walk away.

 

That’s when I screamed at the house, “Get your dog you fucking moron.

Then, I took my wet dog, and my wet pants and made my way home.

As for the DADO, I figured he must have come out, and found his dog outside the fence.

I’m mean. Despite the fact that Delilah had once again been attacked by Attila the Hun, I couldn’t help but giggle at the thought of this dim bulb coming outside and seeing his dog outside the fence.

Well he must have, because it looks like he made some fortifications on his gate.

SO…Tito was out last week on our evening walk, and coincidentally, so was his owner.  As we passed, the DADO said to the dog, “Tito, stop.”

When opportunity knocks….

I said, “He came out of the fence a couple of weeks ago.”

“He did?”

I wanted to say, you dumb fucker, you damn well KNOW he came out of his fence because you had to have found him.

Instead I said, “Yes, came right out of the fence and attacked my dog.”

And do you know what this DADO said?

Do you?

Well I was going to tell you, but I’d really rather hear some of your guesses. To make it a bit more fun, I’ll give away a $10 Amazon gift card to the first person who guesses what the dumb ass said.  (If you don’t live in the US, that’s okay, as long as you have Amazon in your country, go for it!) I will go by the time stamp on the comment if there are two of the same.  Also, I’ll let you know what he did say in Sunday’s post.

Hint, if you are a long-time reader and been following the DADO’s, this one really had me dumbfounded.

So…..what do you think Gerry said to me, when I told him Tito had attacked Delilah? Remember, this is WTF Wednesday. 🙂

WTF Wednesday-An Eye for An Eye

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Welcome to WTF Wednesday.  The day where I read and review news stories about animals and generally ask WTF was the human thinking? 

Most times I find myself wishing for an eye for an eye. 

 

You've heard this one right?

You’ve heard this one right?

Dog Thrown from Car Window

All kinds of WTF on this one. The original story stated the dog had recently had puppies and been thrown from a car. At first I thought the owners might need to head over to The Poodle (and Dog) Blog for the Neanderthal or Lizard Brain award.

I thought, how hard could it really be to track these assholes down? I mean at some point they need to sell or give away the puppies, right? A smart cop would be scouring the papers/Craig’s List for the next month or so and should easily be able to discover the douche bag that threw the dog out.

Case closed.

Enter the next bit of WTF. I bookmarked the page so I could reference it in this post and when I checked the Rochester, NH Police Dept’s Facebook page, it had been updated saying the story of the dog being thrown out of a car was fabricated.

FABRICATED!

Who makes shit like this up? And WTF for?

Dog Found in Crate in Intersection

Dog found in intersection

Photo courtesy of NBC 2 News.

This little guy was found in a crate in an intersection in Naples, Florida. 

Brian Lachat initially thought it was a recycle bin. He watched as one car and then another hit the container. Then he saw the dog flopping around and quickly rescued the dog.

Turns out the dog had been surrendered to a rescue and was coming back from being neutered. Hopefully he was still juiced up on anesthesia because apparently the transport van lost the dog.

LOST THE DOG. And the crate.

How the hell do you lose a crate? Do you not notice a door is open. Or maybe think, hmmm I put three dogs in, but now there are only two…where did the third dog go?

How do you not know a door came open?

It boggles my mind.

I’m not trying to bash the rescue but maybe they should screen their volunteers just a tiny bit closer. Maybe one of their questions should be, WTF do you do to secure a dog in transport?

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