Summer and Stray Dogs

Those who know me in person know that I have a penchant for bringing home lost animals.  My calling to help defenseless animals runs so deep that when I was still an undergrad, my professors would get phone calls and e-mails from me notifying them that I’d be late or unable to attend class because I saw a dog on the side of the freeway on my way to class and had to pick it up before it got run over.  My undergraduate years may be far behind me now, but I’m still bringing home dogs in distress (much to the chagrin of my family). 

This past weekend a dog actually found me instead of the other way around.  “Brownie” was wandering around in the alley behind our house and when our other dogs started barking at him through the fence, he decided our house sounded like a pretty cool place to be and wanted to join in on the fun.  So he plopped his big self outside our back gate and refused to move.  We had no choice but to bring him inside and keep him happy and healthy until a no-kill animal shelter opened on Monday.

Interestingly, Brownie wasn’t neutered.  As we speak, he should be getting neutered by the shelter I took him to, but it’s too late to save our house from his testosterone-induced hijinks. Being a puppy and quite hormone-driven, he carved a path of destruction through the house.  He refused to stay outside when he knew our other dogs were inside.  Clearly, injustice was being done and he rectified the situation by tearing through our window screens, pushing over all our makeshift barricades, and breaking through the doggie-door cover.  Once inside, he lifted his leg on EVERYTHING in the house and when we waved a broom at him to chase him back outside, he chewed through the broom. He broke into the dog food container, ate so much he threw up, then ate some more.  It would have been hilarious if it hadn’t been so frustrating. 

Brownie’s burning need to hump everything couldn’t be fixed, but my mom DID come up with a clever way of remedying his need to mark furniture.  What you see in the photo at the top of this post is that solution: doggie diapers.  This wouldn’t have worked without Brownie’s sweet disposition. He happily let us duct tape a towel around his mid-section and then never messed with it.  He did, however, keep messing with everything and everyone else.

My mother and I are still recovering from 2 days of little-to-no sleep.  I’m in charge of cleaning the house and repairing the damage since it was my idea to bring him inside.  All in all, it’s been a trying experience and, after experiencing the energy level of a puppy, I now know the only dogs I will ever adopt in the future will be geriatric. 

Life doesn’t stop for anyone, so I’m back to looking for a job, working on my books, and trying not to melt in this summer heat.  Do I regret the damage Brownie did to the house? Yes.  Would I pick him or another stray dog up again? Definitely.  Bleeding hearts like me are few and far between, though, and you shouldn’t rely on the goodness of someone else to save your dog if he gets loose.  Visit my previous post about lost dogs to see steps you can take if your own dog gets loose.

I’d stay and write some more, but there’s a window screen outside that needs my mad duct taping skillz.

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