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| ABC Dog School |
| HELP THESE DOGS |
| copyright 2009 Carole J Sulser |
| The Great Escape |
| By April 2006, my two big old Rottweiler mixes, Conner and Grizzly, were obviously nearing the end of their journeys. Griz hadn't used his pen all winter, as I was bringing him in at night, and during the day I turned him out in the side yard, where he would be buried, so I could get him to his grave when the time came. Conner had never spent a night outdoors in his life, and during the day, used the front dog yard, accessed through one of the pens I had built in 1997. He didn't like being there, for some reason, so I let him use the common yard. This meant that I had a fenced yard and a large pen available, which were soon to come in handy. It was a mild day, and I was outdoors, probably using a pooper scooper, when I saw pups running around loose at the neighbors. I guess I probably tried calling to see if they knew it, and getting no answer, I grabbed leash and treats and headed that way. That's when I saw a friend standing in the back yard, scratching his head as if to say, "What do I do now?" He informed me that the Mrs. wouldn't be home for a couple of days, and he was there looking after the grown son who was mentally unstable. Remembering my empty pens, I yelled, "Toss them over the fence!" And so he did. I ran down to the front dog yard and he handed them over to me as he caught them. They were smeared with black "grease" which was probably poop. The man said the pen stunk like a sewer. I could well imagine, as I had never seen the Mrs. clean up after the pups. We got two yellow females, and a black and tan into Conner's old yard, and I put a spotted male in Griz's empty pen. There was another female black and tan at large, but, and I'll never know why I did this, I told the guy to put her back in the Yorkie pen! So Jasmine, as I later named her, had a few more miseries to deal with. At least I had four of them, and I had two worries now: would the Mrs. be angry, and how long could they stay? That evening, she showed up. I told her she could leave them here, as I had the room. She offered to pay, but I reminded her that they had provided water for me when I had well problems, and helped me when my ankle was broken. She told me at this time that both Star and Annie had had puppies, for a total of 16, and that Annie was in the shed, and that she had kept a favorite in the trailer where it died from drinking bleach water. There had been two black pups, and the friend had taken one of them. Sadly, he ran over it, so she gave him the other one. He calls her Chloe, and there is much to tell about that sweet girl later on. The mystery of the black pup I saw tied to the TV dish one day and never saw again, had now been solved. I asked her what she was feeding the pups, and she told me, "That cat food that comes in the yellow bag." I gasped and blurted out, "You're not supposed to feed dogs cat food!" She said she didn't know that, and afterwards I noticed that she had switched to dog food. I rearranged some fencing, placing a pen section with a gate in it, on their side of the dog yard so the Mrs. could get in to feed the girls from her own yard. I placed a pooper scooper handy, but she didn't use it. She had to walk down the road and up the drive to get to the spotted male. His pen was outside the fence, so it was accessible to her without entering my dog yard, where there was always a dog on the loose. I began setting a bucket of water nearby so she wouldn't have to bring it from home. It's a mystery how these pups all escaped since they weren't all being kept in the same place. Some were in the Yorkie pen, and the spotted boy was tied in a "pallet pen." But, I was just glad they were safe for awhile, and it was a joy to wake up in the morning and see them romping around the yard. My dogs were all old or getting there, and it was a bit depressing. The pups brought new life. But for how long, I wondered? In May I lost both of my big boys, three weeks apart. |
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| Gracie |
| Jasmine and Belle |
| ABC Dog School |
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