Monday at work was pretty busy and stressful, but we had a vet appointment scheduled for our dogs at 3:00pm, so we left at 2:00pm to run a quick errand and to have enough time to get home and take the dogs to the appointment.
Well, when we got home, only Abby was in the backyard...no Ginger. The gate was closed, we didn't see an obvious escape route (we later found a hole she dug under the fence), so I proceeded to freak out thinking that something happened to her, like someone stole her or she escaped and got hit by a car.
I mean, who wouldn't want to steal a cute sweetie like this:
Michael thankfully had enough clarity of mind to suggest we check with our next door neighbors to ask if they've seen her. So I knocked on the neighbors to the left, Michael took the right.
The neighbors on the left, that I went to, consists of a grandmother (I'll call her Martha in this post), her daughter (I'll call her Jane), and Jane's son (Martha's grandson).
They own two dogs and a cat. Their cat looks just like Fred, because at one time Fred got out of our yard and into their yard, and I had gone next door to ask if I could retrieve him.
Fred, the stealth ninja kitty (the orange ball of fur in the middle of the yard)
One of the dogs they have is a lab mix and the other is a small miniature pinscher type dog. When Jane answered the door, I asked her if she's seen my dog, who's a black, Rottweiler mix.
Her response was, "Oh! That was YOUR dog??"
I paused and said, "Excuse me?"
She proceeded to explain that when she woke up that morning, around 9:30am and went to let her dog (lab mix) inside from the backyard, there was another dog in their backyard in addition to their dog (Ginger).
She said the "other dog" (Ginger) tried "to bite my dog" (not true, Martha corrected her later, plus Ginger has never acted aggressive), so she slammed the door quickly, leaving Ginger outside in their backyard alone. (Martha said she went out and took Ginger a container filled with water because she looked thirsty and was really sweet. Love this lady!)
How could this girl be thought of as vicious??
Jane said she went about her morning until around 11:00am, when she needed to leave the house for an appointment. But since she NEEDED to let her dogs in her backyard to use the bathroom (heaven forbid she put her dogs on a leash and take them out to the front yard instead, or heaven forbid she attempt to see if the "other dog" in the backyard was truly vicious or not).
So she called animal control.
Animal control arrived and questioned her if the dog might belong to a next door neighbor (because really, how many random, stray dogs jump a privacy fence INTO someone's random yard???)
So for some unknown reason, Jane called Jason (our builder) to ask what our dogs looked like. Jason mistakenly told her that both of our dogs were big dogs and both had tails (only Abby has a tail).
The animal control lady again asked if she was sure it wasn't our dog. Jane sent the animal control lady into her backyard to check through the fence into our yard to see if our dogs were in our backyard (because heaven forbid Jane walk her own self to her fence to check herself...no, leave it up to the animal control lady who is not familiar with what neighbor's pets look like).
So because the animal control lady didn't know we owned two dogs, when she looked over the fence and saw ONE dog in our backyard, she assumed we only owned one dog, so animal control took Ginger.
After Jane explained the situation, all I could say was, "You let animal control take our dog??" Michael stuck around to get the rest of the details, while I began to panic even more because I didn't know the city laws about how long they have to hold an animal before putting them down (Ginger wasn't microchipped or wearing her collar). Thankfully it's at least 3 business days, but I didn't know that at the time to provide me some comfort. (By the way, the reason we don't leave their collars on is because when they were younger and horsing around, Abby's lower jaw got caught under Ginger's collar and nearly suffocated Ginger. Thankfully when that happened, we were in the room and were able to quickly free them.)
I called animal control and they said they had possession of Ginger, but the shelter is closed officially to the public on Mondays (the day this happened was a Monday). But the nice animal control lady got permission from her supervisor to release Ginger to us anyway. However, we had to get to the shelter before 4:00pm to be able to pick her up that day, and also had to pay $25 to reclaim her.
So in summary, instead of waiting a few more hours to check with the neighbors herself, Jane allowed animal control to take our dog, which cost us time (we got to the vet over an hour late), money ($25 plus the vet fees we paid at the appointment, AND our realization that it's worth getting them microchipped - which added $50 more than we budgeted to the vet bill total), and a bunch of stress.
I know that Ginger is alive and well, and that's what really matters, but it just left a sour taste in our mouths at how un-neighborly Jane was.
We're the type of people (and I assume this is pretty normal for most people) who would keep a dog for at least a few hours and make SOME effort to ask around if the dog belongs to someone, before giving it to animal control. And even then, animal control would be a last resort. I would likely take the dog to a vet to check for microchipping, or post an ad on craigslist to see if the owner could be found. THEN, if no one claimed him/her, we'd try to give the dog away to someone. I just hate the idea that so many stray dogs get euthanized at shelters, so it would be a last resort for me to take a stray dog there.
A gift from Granny...maybe now people won't mess with Ginger!
So that was our stressful Monday. By the time we got home and all of it was over, we were SO ready to do our Insanity workout video...we had a LOT of steam to burn off!!
SERENITY NOW!! (Seinfeld reference)
As for other randomness...we were driving to work one morning and came across this scene:
Anyone missing their herd of cows?
Hershey is a love-addict. She will do anything to get my attention sometimes. She Captain Morgan'd me.
I got a stand-up desk at work. Well, I bought a cheap drafting table from Harbor Freight and they allowed me to put my computer monitor on it. But I still get all the benefits of standing without paying a fortune for an official standing station.
We had a much needed summer rainstorm blow through one afternoon and when I got up for a minute to check on some cooking inside, I returned to a chair thief.
While driving home one day, I randomly spotted my first car! I used to call it "Yukie." We sold it in 2007 shortly after marrying so that we could buy a newer, more reliable car (that we call the "Silver Swan"). But I'll always miss the cool-factor and loud engine rumble sound of this vehicle. It's over 20 years old and still looks amazing, so I'm glad to see the current owner takes great care of it!
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