Bonkers in Barnhart

Archive for December, 2008

The owner finally contacted us and arranged to pick up her dog last night.  His name is Rascal.  I tried to tactfully suggest that tags would be a good idea, especially since she said he is almost entirely an outside dog.  And Labs are known for being wanderers.  I doubt she’ll bother, she didn’t seem all that worried about the fact that he wandered off in the first place.  She said she thought he’d come home eventually — well, ok, then.

But at least that is settled and Rascal is back home.  And our cats are forever grateful for that.  William Oranges was purring so hard last night as he sat on my lap I thought he’d vibrate right off!

Now if I could just figure out what is going on with Sprocket the Rocket (our oldest cat) who has turned into the Howard Hughes of kitty cats.  Honestly, he’s gone round the bend!

So last night Alex told me there was a dog in our yard and it was lost.  I went out to look but didn’t see a dog so I told her it must have gone home.  A half hour later she comes running to find me — the dog has returned and it  hanging out on our front porch.  The kids spend a while talking to it through the door and I go out to see if it has any identification — collar but no tags (of course, that would make life too easy — why don’t people put tags on their pets!?!).  The kids begged to go out and visit with the dog and it was friendly so I let them go out for about ten minutes (it was too cold to be out very long) and they had a great time romping around the yard.  They come in and the dog is sitting on our porch again.  Hmm.

So now we have a very big black dog hanging around — did I emphasize the very big part!  It looks to be a lab mix and probably around 80-100 pounds.

We gave him some food and water and then I walked him up and down the street hoping that his owners would have missed  him and would be out looking for him.  No one was out except me (freezing) and the big black dog (having a great time running around).  I knocked at a few houses of people I  knew have dogs hoping that maybe they would be familiar with this one — no one seemed to recognize him.  But I really think that he is from somewhere in the neighborhood because he’s well fed and clean and knows basic commands (sit, lay down, paw).

We took him up to the vet to see if he had a microchip — no luck there either.   We’re making signs to put up around the neighborhood and maybe I’ll take him out again tonight for a walk to see if anyone is looking for him.  We also left information at the vet’s office in case anyone calls.  He’s very sweet and if he belongs to someone they are going to be missing him.

Of course, my kids love the dog — sweet guy that he is he let them lay against him and hug him and read books to him last night.

The cats — not so much love going on there.  The dog really doesn’t bother them and they mostly ignore the dog — except for William Oranges who spent the night “stalking” the dog.  The dog finally had enough of that and growled and barked at William — created quite a ruckus at 2 in the morning (just lovely).  William would probably mellow given time — or end up as a dog treat since he’s only 20 pounds to the dogs 80-100 pounds!  Just kidding, I really don’t think the dog would harm him but William is being a bit of a brat.

But really did I need a big black dog complication in my life right now?  The vacancy sign must have been on again — the one that always attracts strays to our door.