Another Weekend, Another Stray Dog - a rant & story So, just about two weeks ago I found an extra dog in my yard. →[More:]It was bitterly cold and snowing and here is this skinny, terrified mutt who somehow appeared in my fenced backyard where he's having a grand time playing with my three guys. Well. Long story involving milkbones and sitting in the snow making friends with a scared stray short, I called the number on his tag and it had been disconnected. Then I called animal control because honestly I have THREE dogs already and I cannot have another one. They said they were closing because it was snowing and i should just chase him away. So nice, animal control. In the snow. In the under 10 degree weather. Of course I brought him in for the night, keeping him mostly separate from my guys and the next morning animal control showed up and took him to the pound and that was that, right? I felt guilty and sad because he was a really, really sweet dog but again, I cannot have another dog.

Well. This morning my dogs start going nuts and I look out and LO there is another dog running loose in the neighborhood although this time he is not actually in my fence. I am going to be evil, I thought, gonna Ms. Vader out and not deal with this again. Maybe he will find his way home. So I call my dogs in and try to forget about it and then I let them out again a couple hours later and they go nuts and this time, this time there are four loose dogs running up and down my busy, busy street, including the one I saw before AND INCLUDING THE ONE I RESCUED TWO WEEKS AGO, I SWEAR. Which means that his people - who don't feed him, since he was damn near starving when I found him - went & got him at the pound only to let him run loose again. ARGH.

I get my dogs in the house again. The other three dogs run off, leaving the dog who's been hanging around since 8 in the morning. By this time my daughter is home and then there is a huge commotion outside with dogs and shouting and the neighbors all get involved. Another longish story short but naturally I end up spending an hour luring this sweet lost young retriever mix into my car with the aid of many milkbones. The pound is not open on Sunday and animal control will not come to work until 1 pm and anyway I can't call them again because (ahem cough cough) it is just vaguely possible that I know some dogs whose city licenses may not be exactly up to date and who may have been uh reprimanded for that without an actual ticket just two weeks earlier.

However one of my daughter's close friends agreed to take the dog in while we decide what to do and so we drove the dog to South Asheville where he's with her now and I have hopes that he may stay there forever being as how her old cat just died last month.

The dog I rescued today had no collar and no tags and frankly I believe he was dumped, just like the last one and the one who became my third dog a year ago, because, you see, I live about a quarter of a mile from the dog park. Fucking assholes from hell get tired of their dogs and they just drop them off at the dog park and then the poor things find their way up the hill to my house. Or they don't and I am upset again as hell about these people. FUCK YOU PEOPLE. FUCK YOU ASSHOLES WHO WON'T CARE FOR YOUR PETS. Every dog I find is sweet and loving and confused and miserable because he can't find his way home. All three of my dogs were dumped dogs who nobody wanted and nobody claimed and this is so goddamn heartbreaking. And no, there's nothing to be done - the no kill shelters are completely full up and so are the rescue organizations and in my smallish North Carolina county over 2,000 unwanted cats and dogs will be euthanized (which is the best and only solution, although it makes me cry too) this year.

SPAY AND NEUTER YOUR ANIMALS. MAKE SURE THEY HAVE TAGS WITH CURRENT INFORMATION ON THEM. LOVE THEM. AND FOR GODS' SAKE IF YOU CANNOT KEEP THEM THEN HAVE SOME FUCKING GUTS AND TAKE THEM TO THE SHELTER YOURSELF LIKE A GROWNUP.

I know nobody here would ever do anything like this but I had to get it off my chest. There are a lot of days lately where I am not a big fan of humanity. This would be one of them.