A couple of weeks ago Kelly came home from school, opened the garage, got out of her car, and there were two stray dogs there. They were dirty and matted and they looked like they’
ve been on the lamb since the hurricane. They are both males and one is tan and white and the other is gray and tan. They looked like brothers and we figured they were
shihtzu. Neither of them had collars.
She put them in the garage and left it open just a crack so it
wouldn’t be too hot in there. When she went to check on them later, the gray one had squeezed out of the narrow gap below the garage door.
If the remaining dog was going to be around our other dog, Abigail for any length of time we wanted to take it to the vet so to make sure it
didn’t have anything that Abigail might catch. Kelly took it to the vet and found out that it had hook worms and whip worms which we got medicine for. Later on a neighbor found the gray dog and brought it to our house asking if it was ours. It
wasn’t, but since they were a duo we took him back. We named the tan one Sam and the gray one Charlie.
Kelly printed up some “found dog” signs and hung them on the mailboxes in the neighborhood.
The guys were pretty badly matted so we wanted to groom them so they’d feel better. We bought some dog clippers and went to town on Sam. Poor guy looked like he lost a fight with Edward
Scissorhands. What the hell do I know about dog grooming? We spared Charlie the humiliation.
Then we had to take Charlie to the vet too. He had hook worms, ring worms,
heartworms and a swollen prostate. We got them rabies shots, all the medicines and scheduled to have them neutered. No one had called on the signs so we considered them our dogs at this point. Especially since their previous owner took such poor care of them.
We took them to
Petsmart to get them properly groomed and then we took them to get them neutered. They are really good dogs. Sam is an attention whore and is the alpha male. He likes to play and can jump really high. Charlie is real laid back and
couldn’t care less about everything. He’s always bringing up the rear. They both ride in the car well and are housebroke. The vet said they were about 5 years old and that they are not
shihtzus but
lhasa apsos. And best of all they get along with Abigail. Kelly’s mom, Peggy, said she would take them since we are going to have our hands full with a baby soon. We went around the neighborhood and collected the signs but two of them were missing.
Here’s where the story takes a twist -- someone called on the sign. I called the guy back, he described the dogs and said that they belonged to his girlfriend’s mom. I struggled with the dilemma and ending up lying to the guy. I told him that we had the dogs for a while but they got out of our backyard and we haven’t seen them since so we took the signs down. He said this was the third or fourth time they’d gotten out. I asked him what their names were just in case I saw them again I could call them and they’d come to me. He said the tan one was Jake and the gray one was Bouncer.
This was really hard for me to do. I thought about a little old lady somewhere who’d lost her friends. I rationalized my lie by thinking that they were matted, had all sorts of parasites, prostate problems, and had gotten out several times in the past, and
didn’t have collars or tags. If she loved them like they deserved then she would have taken better care of them. The vet said that if we
hadn’t done all the stuff to them that we did, they’d probably be dead. When is it okay to lie? I think it’s okay when you can save a couple of puppies.
Jake’s a good name so we kept that name. Bouncer is a stupid name for a dog so we kept calling him Charlie. They don’t come when you call them either name so it
doesn’t really matter. We got them collars and tags.
We took Jake & Charlie over to Peggy’s house. Charlie gets along with her other dog Toby, but Jake really
didn’t. We decided that Peggy would take Charlie and we’d take Jake since he got along well with Abigail. We started to treat Jake like a member of the family. He’s a good dog. The only problem is he and Abigail compete for your attention. If Abigail is in your lap Jake wants to be there too and vice
versa. They were always climbing all over us all the time. We can’t have dogs jumping on Kelly so we started looking for a new home for Jake.
Melanie’s friend Rachel said she would take him. They have two little girls and no other pets. This is going to be perfect for Jake since he’ll get lots of attention, and won’t have any other dog’s to compete with. Melanie came to pick him up yesterday. We were sad to see him go, but relieved that he’s going to have a good home.
I’m not sure we did the right thing, but what’s done is done. I take comfort knowing these dogs are going to live long, healthy, happy lives.
1st trip to the vet - $120
Dog clippers - $30
2
nd trip to the vet - $280
Deluxe grooming, collars, & tags- $150
3rd trip to the vet - $195
Lesson learned – don’t pick up strays and if you do take them to a no-kill shelter immediately.
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