Dog follies
Long-time readers of this journal may remember that in years gone by we have had various contretemps with neighborhood dogs. There was Maverick, the fear-aggressive German Shepherd next door, who was unfortunately afraid of everything and everyone except his owners. As long as he lived, never saw Kathy, me, or any of our dogs as anything but slavering killers who were obviously out to get him. To his dying day, he would go into a frenzy of growling and barking and rushing the fence if we set foot in the back yard while he was out. He couldn't get through the fence, but once, jealous or scared when his owner was petting one of our former dogs, Sam, he got his muzzle through the chain link far enough to bite a piece out of Sam's ear. (His owners were much chagrined, and offered to pay any vet bills, but I cleaned it up and it healed fine on its own.)
Then there was Psycho Dog, the pit mix across the street, who was also fine with his owner and his companion Brown Dog, but who took exception to Bo's face, and would hurl himself at the rickety gate of his house screaming his head off whenever we walked by. Psycho Dog got out twice, and actually got into a fight with Bo the second time, and I had to report him to Animal Control to force the owner to get her gate fixed.
The current Problem Dog is not anything so fraught, thankfully. Django is a beautiful Shepherd/husky mix of some kind, about Bo's size, about a year old, and full of Boundless Energy. He's fine with people, though not much interested in them, and not dog-aggressive, save insofar as he desperately, desperately wants to play with every dog he meets, and not every dog he meets is interested. He also doesn't have the sense God gave little green apples.
His owners are the sort of people who love pets, but are lackadaisical about taking care of them. They won't put a collar on him because the first time they tried, he freaked out and got his lower jaw caught in it trying to chew it off. I've had that happen with a couple of the cats, and I know how alarming and scary it can be, buuuuuut... in every single case I've managed to get them used to it. If they kept Django inside, it might not be a problem, since he does have a microchip. But they mostly keep him in the yard, and therein lies the rub. Django is an escape artist. He's gotten out half a dozen times when they've left their gate open, and there's strong circumstantial evidence to suggest that he can climb or jump their fence when it's not open. It's illegal to have an untagged dog off your property in Phoenix, for one. For two, he's a gorgeous dog, and it's entirely possible that if someone found him running around untagged, they might decided to keep him rather than check for an owner. And for three, not having the sense God gave little green apples, he's gonna run into the street and get hit by a car sooner or later.
Anyway, today I got home from work, let Bo out, fed the cats, cleaned the litterboxes, leashed Bo up, and set out for the park. We hadn't gone half a block before I hear the gallop of doggy feet behind us. I turn around, and there's Django. Apparently he was bored, and leaped over the back fence of his house and into the alley, and when he saw Bo and I pass by, he came tearing down the alley to investigate. He was delirious with joy to see another dog, and kept racing in circles and bouncing at Bo in an attempt to get him to play. Bo regarded him with a jaundiced eye and ignored the shenanigans. Since he was paying no attention to me whatsoever, I used the long-suffering Bo as a lure to lead him back to his house, knocked on the front door, and delivered him to his owners, who had no IDEA how he got out, gosh golly. Bo heaved a sigh of relief to be free of the teenybopper, and we went to the park.
The training for the reporting program they use at the New Place finally came through this week. My manager told me to take as long as I needed with it. I finished all seven lessons in two days. I tried to make it last longer, because I still don't have access to the shared drive where all the reports are kept, and without that, there's not much I can do. (This is a HUGE company, and apparently this sort of delay is not unusual.) The program they use (SAS) is not nearly as flexible as Business Objects in terms of formatting and layout of reports, but it's got many nifty features for creating and automating processes. And if I want to make something pretty, I'm going to be learning Tableau anyway.
Rants Talk to me
Then there was Psycho Dog, the pit mix across the street, who was also fine with his owner and his companion Brown Dog, but who took exception to Bo's face, and would hurl himself at the rickety gate of his house screaming his head off whenever we walked by. Psycho Dog got out twice, and actually got into a fight with Bo the second time, and I had to report him to Animal Control to force the owner to get her gate fixed.
The current Problem Dog is not anything so fraught, thankfully. Django is a beautiful Shepherd/husky mix of some kind, about Bo's size, about a year old, and full of Boundless Energy. He's fine with people, though not much interested in them, and not dog-aggressive, save insofar as he desperately, desperately wants to play with every dog he meets, and not every dog he meets is interested. He also doesn't have the sense God gave little green apples.
His owners are the sort of people who love pets, but are lackadaisical about taking care of them. They won't put a collar on him because the first time they tried, he freaked out and got his lower jaw caught in it trying to chew it off. I've had that happen with a couple of the cats, and I know how alarming and scary it can be, buuuuuut... in every single case I've managed to get them used to it. If they kept Django inside, it might not be a problem, since he does have a microchip. But they mostly keep him in the yard, and therein lies the rub. Django is an escape artist. He's gotten out half a dozen times when they've left their gate open, and there's strong circumstantial evidence to suggest that he can climb or jump their fence when it's not open. It's illegal to have an untagged dog off your property in Phoenix, for one. For two, he's a gorgeous dog, and it's entirely possible that if someone found him running around untagged, they might decided to keep him rather than check for an owner. And for three, not having the sense God gave little green apples, he's gonna run into the street and get hit by a car sooner or later.
Anyway, today I got home from work, let Bo out, fed the cats, cleaned the litterboxes, leashed Bo up, and set out for the park. We hadn't gone half a block before I hear the gallop of doggy feet behind us. I turn around, and there's Django. Apparently he was bored, and leaped over the back fence of his house and into the alley, and when he saw Bo and I pass by, he came tearing down the alley to investigate. He was delirious with joy to see another dog, and kept racing in circles and bouncing at Bo in an attempt to get him to play. Bo regarded him with a jaundiced eye and ignored the shenanigans. Since he was paying no attention to me whatsoever, I used the long-suffering Bo as a lure to lead him back to his house, knocked on the front door, and delivered him to his owners, who had no IDEA how he got out, gosh golly. Bo heaved a sigh of relief to be free of the teenybopper, and we went to the park.
The training for the reporting program they use at the New Place finally came through this week. My manager told me to take as long as I needed with it. I finished all seven lessons in two days. I tried to make it last longer, because I still don't have access to the shared drive where all the reports are kept, and without that, there's not much I can do. (This is a HUGE company, and apparently this sort of delay is not unusual.) The program they use (SAS) is not nearly as flexible as Business Objects in terms of formatting and layout of reports, but it's got many nifty features for creating and automating processes. And if I want to make something pretty, I'm going to be learning Tableau anyway.
Rants Talk to me