The internet is full of various cat themed memes and lolcats. I'm not going to add any here or bore you with any. But I am a cat person, and so I often find myself lured into watching cat videos on YouTube, or looking up ridiculous recycled lolcat pictures. I've also been a cat owner for quite a few years of my life. It isn't that I don't like dogs, but I just don't like them enough to want to own them. I'll pat friendly dogs, and when I visit friends who own them, I'll rub behind the dog's ears and scratch their belly. Even take them for walks. So it isn't like I loathe the animals.
Now, some people have dogs for a whole variety of reasons, and one of those reasons is security. Its a reason that I understand and its also a reason that has occassionally had me contemplating whether I needed to become a dog owner myself. Dogs are generally territorial, and will usually make alot of noise, if not being outright aggressive, if they feel a stranger is intruding on their property.
I used to live next to a lady who had two medium sized dogs, and they would go nuts if someone even walked past the property on the street, let alone go near the gate. I remember a few of the parents telling me they would not only cross to the opposite side of the street, but they would be walking across the lawns of the opposing houses to be as far from the dogs as possible, due to how aggressive and loud they were against the gate, when they passed by. The children all feared the dogs, and it didn't surprise me at all.
The lady who owned the dogs lived there with her brother, then one day she came over to ask me to look after the dogs for two weeks, while she went back to Italy to attend a relative's wedding. I wasn't keen, considering how the dogs behaved, but apparently her brother had moved out a few months prior and he wasn't keen on looking after them. The task was feed the dogs and get the mail for two weeks. She'd provide the food necessary. There was no real introduction to the dogs, or explanation on how said feeding should occur, and I was a chump at the time and agreed to help her out, even though I should have grilled her more on how this was all supposed to happen.
My solution? Well the side gate was a large wrought iron gate with vertical bars, but also a small gap at the bottom, so I decided that I'd go with placing the opened food on a piece of board, twice a day, with a rope attached. I'd slide the board under the gate so the dogs could eat, and once done, I'd pull the rope to get the board back for next time.
Anyway, after the first day of this, the dogs got accustomed to me coming around and were a little more settled. Their behaviour had changed pretty quickly, and I was starting to wonder if they really were feral, or if it was something else. So deciding it'd be good for a laugh, I ventured my left hand through the bars to pat them on the head, and it turned out the dogs were simply starved for affection.
After that, I made it a habit to go through the gate each day to check on their welfare. The lady who owned these dogs really didn't care for them very well. Bedding was a mess and reeked of urine, and their water bucket was only half full and filled with algae. Each day was spent doing some basic clean up, and making sure they had full clean water to drink. I was able to even show a few of the local kids that the dogs really were quite friendly after all.
This all came around to bite me though, in a manner of speaking. The dogs had started getting used to my routine of arriving, entering through the gate and providing food, and on the last day, right before the neighbour was due back from her holiday, the dogs bolted for freedom as I was stepping through the gate. Damn mutts! I had no chance. They were off at full pelt and were gone.
A storm was rolling in that afternoon, and there wasn't much I could do. I drove around the neighbourhood a little, but couldn't spot them anywhere. A couple of hours later, I tried again, walking around the block, and spotted the two of them trotting together down the street. These dogs hadn't ever been trained to respond to commands so my best shot was to crouch down like when I had been giving them food, and as they came over I grabbed each dog's collar and dragged them both back into the yard.
I was just glad that when the neighbour got back, the two dogs were back in the yard and everything was normal. Still not happy about the way those dogs were kept, but it wasn't quite at a level for the RSPCA to do anything about it.
The neighbour got back and the dogs returned to barking crazy at anyone who walked past, including me.
Damn mutts.
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