Lost Dog
While at home this week, the weather was taking some deep dives into sub-zero weather. I did get to go outside and play with bubbles and was happy to watch the popped little shells float down to the snow and their corpses still remained there through the next morning. Tuesday night was supposed to drop to twenty below and Wednesday -25 with a high of -5 or 0. Both days were supposed to feel twenty degrees colder than that because of the wind-chill.
When I was little we played outside when it was twenty below which was fun because your hair would get wet in the snow and you could break it off. I always thought this was fascinating and it never bothered me to be out as long as my mouth and nose were covered since it hurts your lungs. We never had a snow day because of the sub-zero temps, the policy of the school is still that it has to be minus thirty (not taking the wind-chill into account) but of course administrators can overrule this if necessary.
I had been watching the thermometer on Tuesday evening and it held at 28F until about eight and then over the course of less than two hours plummeted to 10F. Around this time a dog ran through our driveway and kept running back and forth passed our window. I poked my head out the garage door and the big dog lumbered up and put his head in my lap. I petted him and told him to go home. I went inside. For the next twenty minutes he stood outside barking a very big dog bark and whining. We shut the lights out and turned off the T.V. so that he would go home. He did not. My mom started flipping out, what the hell are we going to do with this dog? I snipped at her for bitching about the dog when she watches Animal Planet 24/7 and claims to be an animal advocate and here she was leaving this dog in the cold. I think you don't have a right to call yourself an animal rescuer unless you've salmonella'd yourself to save a turtle, missed work to rescue a bunny, or gotten a third degree burn trying to help a dog.
I let the dog in the garage. This made it bound at me excitedly, but as soon as it was alone in the garage while I hatched a plan, it began to bark again. My parents Jack Russell was inside going insane while this big un-neutered beast was in the garage going berserk. I stole my mom's boots and bundled up and began knocking on doors, it was after 10:30. Nobody belonged to the dog but the suggested other people. I followed the dogs tracks down the other end of the road but they stopped and I was left without further clues. I went home and we called the suggested people and none of them were the owners. I had my mom call my dad at work since he knows all the neighborhood dogs and he didn't know who he was. I called the police to see if anyone had reported a dog missing, they gave me the dog wardens number, but he didn't answer. We had seen someone walk by around 6 with a flashlight a couple times but we didn't know who they were or if they were even looking for anything.
I decided that since he didn't want to be alone that he could sleep with me because his fur was definitely not made for outdoor living. I couldn't decide what his breed was, mastiff or pittie. He was super loveable. While I laid there he kept coming to check on me and leaving slime trails on my arms. I didn't get any sleep between worrying about what to do with him and getting sick. At five a.m. I got up to potty and he woke up my dad barking. I went back downstairs and got the worst heartburn as I laid there, but there was no way I was waking the entire household again to get medicine. I finally got some good rest after six. At eight my mom woke me because the dog warden called and wanted to know the number on his Rabies tag. The number wasn't in his system, or on the paper copies he had. He told me I would have to call the town clerk to see if it was a new number that he didn't have yet and if that didn't work, I had to call a different dog warden but he wouldn't be home until after five p.m. I was beginning to worry because I was leaving at noon and my dad would be leaving for work at the same time and there was no way my mom could manage this huge dog. She was afraid of him for starters and she's also not stable enough to walk by herself let alone with seventy pounds pulling her. I took him out to potty and my decision to bring him in for the night was reinforced when he limped all the way home after walking in a shallow snow bank, it had warmed up to negative thirteen.
The town clerk was just opening and I picked up the phone to call when my dad came in and announced that he found his owner. He knew a new family had moved in to a house down the road so he went and knocked on their door and sure enough they were the ones with the flashlights. The guy followed dad to our house and I met them in the garage with 'Harley,' who honestly was more happy trying to hump me than see his dad. The dog belonged to the guy's daughter who is away at college and he was so upset that he was going to have to tell her he froze to death. I'm just happy he made his way home. Oh, and he’s a Kane Corso, a descendent of a Bull Mastiff. I’ve only met one other and he looks nothing like her, so I don’t know how close he is to breed standard.
Sorry this pic is so blurry, he would NOT hold still for anything!
When I was little we played outside when it was twenty below which was fun because your hair would get wet in the snow and you could break it off. I always thought this was fascinating and it never bothered me to be out as long as my mouth and nose were covered since it hurts your lungs. We never had a snow day because of the sub-zero temps, the policy of the school is still that it has to be minus thirty (not taking the wind-chill into account) but of course administrators can overrule this if necessary.
I had been watching the thermometer on Tuesday evening and it held at 28F until about eight and then over the course of less than two hours plummeted to 10F. Around this time a dog ran through our driveway and kept running back and forth passed our window. I poked my head out the garage door and the big dog lumbered up and put his head in my lap. I petted him and told him to go home. I went inside. For the next twenty minutes he stood outside barking a very big dog bark and whining. We shut the lights out and turned off the T.V. so that he would go home. He did not. My mom started flipping out, what the hell are we going to do with this dog? I snipped at her for bitching about the dog when she watches Animal Planet 24/7 and claims to be an animal advocate and here she was leaving this dog in the cold. I think you don't have a right to call yourself an animal rescuer unless you've salmonella'd yourself to save a turtle, missed work to rescue a bunny, or gotten a third degree burn trying to help a dog.
I let the dog in the garage. This made it bound at me excitedly, but as soon as it was alone in the garage while I hatched a plan, it began to bark again. My parents Jack Russell was inside going insane while this big un-neutered beast was in the garage going berserk. I stole my mom's boots and bundled up and began knocking on doors, it was after 10:30. Nobody belonged to the dog but the suggested other people. I followed the dogs tracks down the other end of the road but they stopped and I was left without further clues. I went home and we called the suggested people and none of them were the owners. I had my mom call my dad at work since he knows all the neighborhood dogs and he didn't know who he was. I called the police to see if anyone had reported a dog missing, they gave me the dog wardens number, but he didn't answer. We had seen someone walk by around 6 with a flashlight a couple times but we didn't know who they were or if they were even looking for anything.
I decided that since he didn't want to be alone that he could sleep with me because his fur was definitely not made for outdoor living. I couldn't decide what his breed was, mastiff or pittie. He was super loveable. While I laid there he kept coming to check on me and leaving slime trails on my arms. I didn't get any sleep between worrying about what to do with him and getting sick. At five a.m. I got up to potty and he woke up my dad barking. I went back downstairs and got the worst heartburn as I laid there, but there was no way I was waking the entire household again to get medicine. I finally got some good rest after six. At eight my mom woke me because the dog warden called and wanted to know the number on his Rabies tag. The number wasn't in his system, or on the paper copies he had. He told me I would have to call the town clerk to see if it was a new number that he didn't have yet and if that didn't work, I had to call a different dog warden but he wouldn't be home until after five p.m. I was beginning to worry because I was leaving at noon and my dad would be leaving for work at the same time and there was no way my mom could manage this huge dog. She was afraid of him for starters and she's also not stable enough to walk by herself let alone with seventy pounds pulling her. I took him out to potty and my decision to bring him in for the night was reinforced when he limped all the way home after walking in a shallow snow bank, it had warmed up to negative thirteen.
The town clerk was just opening and I picked up the phone to call when my dad came in and announced that he found his owner. He knew a new family had moved in to a house down the road so he went and knocked on their door and sure enough they were the ones with the flashlights. The guy followed dad to our house and I met them in the garage with 'Harley,' who honestly was more happy trying to hump me than see his dad. The dog belonged to the guy's daughter who is away at college and he was so upset that he was going to have to tell her he froze to death. I'm just happy he made his way home. Oh, and he’s a Kane Corso, a descendent of a Bull Mastiff. I’ve only met one other and he looks nothing like her, so I don’t know how close he is to breed standard.
Sorry this pic is so blurry, he would NOT hold still for anything!