December 27, 2008

What's One More?

About a half of mile up our access road/driveway sets a small plot of land with a rental home . I have never met the owner and rarely meet the tenants. They move in and back out sometimes before we are aware they are even there.
This last family was there maybe 3 or 4 months. We only knew someone occupied the house due to dogs being tied out in the yard. In the beginning there were 2, each month they added another.
I couldn't help but notice the dogs on my way to and from the mailbox, mainly the lack of care given to the dogs. They were tied out in the front of the house close to the road. The small ones on ropes, then one large one on a chain. One small dog had a large kitchen type waste basket for shelter from the elements. I never observed food in their bowls, though they did have water in other bowls when I stopped to check on them. The dogs were dirty, coats matted, looked under nourished, not to mention so sad and lonely.
I started taking them food.
One day as I passed to go to the mailbox the woman was in her yard. I stopped, introduced myself and asked if she would be interested in giving away the one little dog. She said no, stated he would be going in the house when the weather turned cold. I politely told her if the dog came up missing in the winter weather to come to the farm, I would have taken it home with me. She laughed and said OK.
I really had planned on bringing him home the first time it snowed.
One day about 2 weeks ago I noticed a couple of trucks in front of the house being loaded with boxes and furniture. The next day, the trucks were gone, 2 of the dogs were also gone. The small dog I had asked about was one that was missing. I was actually relieved to an extent. Out of sight out of mind, I would never know what happened to him at least I would not have to watch him suffer.
There continued to be evidence someone was still living there, I would see a truck parked in the drive, the big dog was still chained in the yard, porch light was left on at night.
2 days before Christmas a neighbor at the end of the access road calls to see if I was home and asks if they could come down. Seems that in the last week the remaining tenant had moved, taken the big dog but had left a small dog that was not visible from the front of the house. They had heard it crying, taken it home with plans of keeping it. Their dog seemed to have difficulties in accepting the new addition and did not want to risk the abandoned pup being hurt.

Sooo...wouldn't you think that 6 dogs is enough?

We adopted the abandoned pup.

The vet said she was roughly 6 months old. She is malnourished, literally skin and bones. She appears to be Basset hound mixed with who knows what. She has not much body tone or much muscle strength. From her behavior she possibly may have been physically abused.
The better half calls her D.D. as in ...that darn dog piddled in the floor again.


D.D. is now an indoor dog, bathed, treated for fleas, ticks and worms. We have her on a new diet and she is getting lots of exercise (so am I). House training is going well, hopefully won't take long.
She has followed me while I do the morning animal care. Unfortunately the first goat she met was the wrong goat to meet first. She came face to face with Sarah Beth who despises dogs. Have to say DD is a quick study, after meeting Sarah, she decided to wait at the other gates for me.

5 comments:

Jennifer said...

aww..what a beautiful little dog she is! And a lucky dog to end up in your home where she will get lots of good food and care. I hate to see dogs tied up on ropes or chains. I never understood WHY those people even have dogs if they are going to put them on a chain in the yard and forget about them.

Joanna@BooneDocksWilcox said...

you're a softie. :-) give DD a hug for me. she looks precious

Tammy said...

She is so beautiful! And I'm so happy for her, that you guys took her in. What a lucky little girl. I don't understand things like this either, Jama. Why do people 'collect' animals only to abuse and neglect them? Makes no sense and it breaks my heart. BUT this is a happy story, and I'm going to treasure that!
Tammy

Sharrie said...

Thanks for the Christmas love story.
DD is a doll. She is also a lucky little girl. Love her like she deserves to be loved

Anonymous said...

What a nice dog, I hate hearing people tying out any kind of animal for that matter, we're kind of hesitant selling goats to people that tie out their goats theirselves though, we had a lady come with her 2 children that just live down the road from us and she ties out her Pygmy goats which I'm not sure what we'll do in that situation but I showed her around and explained see we don't tie out our goats at all since we have stray dogs around here and coyotes and other wild critters around here even possibly a bobcat. So we'll see what the outcome will be!