Dad! What do I do with this thing?

Marty’s photo of the day #4428: “Dad! What do I do with this thing? I can’t chase it, like a squirrel, but I can’t really play with it, like a dog, either.”

In my book, Hits, Heathens, and Hippos: Stories from an Agent, Activist, and Adventurer, I have a story about Buddy, a cantankerous Saint Bernard-mix that lived down the road from us. When he was young, he charged me a couple times. But when he was about 14, he decided he wanted to live with Deb, me, and our two dogs. We’d walk him to his owner’s home, only to find him back in our driveway ten minutes later. Eventually the owner told us to keep him. So I gave Buddy his first ever bath (he had itchy skin and was losing fur) and first ever set of shots. Buddy then transformed into an absolutely great, affectionate dog. He lived with us until he was 19-years-old, and we had to put him to sleep because his rear legs got too weak.

Another time, two golden retriever puppies showed up in our driveway, and we had to call around to find out where they belonged.

Then, last week, two miniature dachshunds showed up on our back porch. They had collars but no IDs. Our house is surrounded by the 25-acre Essen Wildlife Refuge, so these little dogs had to cover quite a bit of territory to get to us. Deb walked the dogs across our forest and down the hill to a cluster of houses. She went door-to-door (a dangerous thing now that people get shot so quickly for knocking on the wrong door), trying to find the dogs’ owner. When the dogs took off into the woods after some wild turkeys, she finally gave up.

Then, on Sunday, the dogs appeared out of nowhere to join Deb, Nellie, and me on our evening walk around the perimeter of our wildlife refuge. Nellie wasn’t quite sure what to do with the dogs. She wanted to play with them, but was also nervous she might hurt them.

I, on the other hand, was fuming! How could people be so fucking irresponsible that they would let two tiny dogs roam the forest without ID tags? These dogs would be easy-to-catch snacks for any of the wolves, bears, coyotes, mountain lions, and foxes that frequent our refuge.

When we returned home, I got on the phone and started calling people on the opposite side of our property. I quickly found the owners, and when they showed up, I told them about Deb going door-to-door and strongly suggested they immediately buy ID tags. They simply looked at the ground and took their dogs.

I know the world is full of people who have no business owning dogs. In fact, that’s how we got Buddy, Nellie, and some other wonderful dogs over the years. But other than taking in the dogs we can, and feeling pissed off for a few days, there’s not much else we can do. It’s like trying to stop people from littering or idolizing Donald Trump. Stunted emotional development seems to be an irreversible condition.