You may remember past scenes of puppy mauling from our photo stream. For Colin at least, this one here was the last. After taking a day-off-dogs on the 1st, we discovered we couldn’t just close the door and be rid of them anymore. They live here now.
We’ve stopped feeding them treats since Newyears, and stopped paying attention to them except to boot them off the deck, but still they persist that this is their new home, and we are their chew toys. Colin is depressed and angry about not being able to control the buggers. At 2 or 3 months old they may be starting to teethe but haven’t learned any manners yet. They chew on things and bark at night, run inside if the door is open and jump up on us when we leave the house.
We still like Brave; the original, whussy Momma’s boy (the one with the black muzzle in most of our pictures), but his brother and sister are complete terrors. You toss them down the stairs and they scamper right back up again. You yell and point at them and they run through your legs. Whereas Brave cowers and whines even when you aren’t mad at him, and stays where you put him. I hope we can find a way to keep him around; if any of them actually needs our attention it’s probably him.
So far the puppies (even Brave) haven’t been too put out by our putting them out, but Momma is. She’s been living with us for awhile now, and I guess she’s got anxiety problems. When we finally emerged from our hungover state on the 2nd, she was so excited to see us again that she started panting very fast and loud and shaking all over. Her eyes went wide and her ears back in what I would call ‘a dog freaking out’. She desperatly licked our hands and faces (she’d never done that before) until we edged back to the door and escaped inside.
Then she whined and scratched at the door (which she’d also never done) until we closed the curtain. Still hyperventillating, she ran all around the house looking for a way in. At one point she made it to the other side of the deck railing and was confused about how to get back, then she tried to sit down on the two inches of clearance and fell off with a yelp (we checked that she was okay, then laughed our asses off). Ten minutes later I heard more scrabbling and hysterical wheezing at the bike under another window. I peeked out again, and when she saw me she lept from where she’d been balancing on the bike seat and smashed her face into the closed window between us (I think that one did hurt her).
We shut all the drapes that night and hid from this horror-movie stalker. I had nightmares.
Colin has their long-term survival in mind when he tries to chase them off. What if the neighbours stop feeding them because they’ve moved in with us? What if they become dependant on us, and we move away in a few months? What do we do if Momma’s suitor (still lurking around) gets her in the family way?
I would love for the answer to be “it’s not our problem”. If the people (our landlords actually) who feed these dogs don’t think it’s a big deal then why should we care? The puppies will get run over or poisoned eventually, and until then we can play with them and make their little lives happy… Except they are our problem, because they’re chewing up our things being pains in the ass every time we go outside. The lady next door called them ‘Bad news’ and probably blames us for enticing them from across the street. Well, I guess we did, but we’d like to send them back now, please.
I’ve been in touch with the animal clinic on the island. They are tiny and underfunded but spay a few dogs every month, and they agreed to get Momma on the list for next round. If we can get her on a Songthaew without her freaking out again and jumping off the back – am interesting supposition.
