Dog in the Road

 I went to get groceries yesterday morning fairly early.

I was expecting visitors, brief ones, pop in and out, so I wanted to get done with the grocery list.

I drove backroads home.  They're not far out of town, just less busy.   A big white SUV was tailgating me, as is so often the case now with hurried people.

Suddenly I come around a 90 degree corner (roads around here navigate around property lines) and see a dog in the middle of the road.  The dog was looking at cars, like I thought is she trying to recognize people inside the cars?   But, I reasonsed, if that SUV a-hole behind me had been in front of me, speeding, as it wanted to do, the dog would be hit.

I slowed to a near stop to pass the dog, forcing the SUV to do the same, then I pulled over.

We've had a rash of dog abandonments lately.   Two mastiff mixes were abandoned blatantly in Waterloo park.  The camp host said they had people with them, who then just took off without them.  They ran loose for over a week before dog control got them and took them to the dog shelter.  It's chronically full these days.   They'd been warning they were full when two more dogs, these working dog mixes of some sort, medium sized dogs, were left tied by their leashes to a fence at the dog park in Albany, in the night.   The police really want to find the people who did that.   They somehow made space to take them in also.  So I wondered if this dog was the latest to be abandoned.

I opened my car door after pulling over a couple hundred feet farther down the road and looked back at the dog, who was watching me with anticipation. "Come on," I said, enthusiastically, and she came running.  She paused momentarily outside my car to greet me, then leaped inside with abandon, pulling her lips back to grin and give me a sloppy kiss.   "Oh shoot," I lectured myself, "don't fall in love immediately."

In the back of my mind, a conversation was going on.  'What if I can't find her people?  And dog control can't take her?  What am I doing?  Would the cats really hate me that much if I brought this sweetie home?  No, they'd adjust, I'm sure it would just take time, that's all.'  The conversation went something like that. 

But I knew what I needed to do and that was drive to the nearest house, which I did.  The house had a longish driveway and was expansive, like an estate you'd see on a TV show.  I walked up the steps to the impressive wrap around deck and massive front doors.  There I found a note, something to the effect that my knock would not be heard, to walk the deck around to the right and knock on the last door on the left.  

There were lots of doors but I finally found the last door on the left which said to knock.    A lady answered my knock immediately and even finished my sentence, when I started to say I'd found a dog out in the road a ways up and...."black and white" she asked?   Yup, I said.

"That's Chloey and she adores people, so when we're not around, she's takes off looking for people."   I walked back to my car and let Chloey out.  She looked maybe a tad guilty.   

My visitors yesterday included a knock and leave lady I knew long ago.  She's quite a fisher and brought me some herring.   I didn't know there would be that many herring--three bags, not frozen either.  

 I froze two bags and set to cleaning the one bag of tiny fish, intent on maybe drying them into jerky. Been awhile since I cleaned fish.  Some seemed rotten though, fell apart when I was cleaning them. These I discarded.  I worked a slime line in Alaska cleaning salmon.  Sometimes I'd have fish come through you could put your gloved fingers through the flesh.  These were rotten.   I don't have a sharp fish knife but made do.   I didn't get much meat off them and gave up trying to fillet them.  If I could get good fillets I would have pickled them.  I baked them in the end, cleaned, descaled, with heads and fins removed, then removed the spine and ribs after they were cooked.   For all that work, not much to show.  I shared some with my cats.

The others will become jerky.   I'll clean, season and dry in the oven on low heat.

She had a lot of herring and I don't turn down anything that stretches a thin budget.

My next visitor came down from Keizer to drop off some old pain meds she had for cats in case Bob needs them.  Bob turns out is too shy for me to get it in his cheek, which is where these meds must go.  That's ok, it was great to see her and chat a few minutes.  She's what I call a beloved treasured friend. 

The third visitor was here to pick up my remaining traps, all of which save my two large ones, are now currently loaned out.   He's supposed to trap four more at his colony for tomorrow's spots.   

Because of the anxiety I feel when I loan out my precious traps, to virtual strangers, its not going to happen that much anymore.   People are pretty lousy at taking care of things they borrow or returning them promptly.   I don't know why that is.   But I hate it, having to constantly work to get things back I've loaned out, when people should be working to get things they borrow back.   What happened?   Why are people this way now, more often than the other way?

Bob is now in a large cage in the garage, for his comfort.  He's not tame like I'd hoped, but he will get neutered and that ear looked at tomorrow and he can stay in the cage until he recuperates and then I'll let him back out.  He really likes the soft blankees.

Our weather has not disappointed, been in the mid 70's.  Today I intend to get out and enjoy the sun.