Below is a picture of the area we live in. As you can tell,
it is fairly rural and, as such, is a favorite dumping ground for people who
want to get rid of pets, for whatever reason. Notice the star indicating the
nature preserve. It is about 1 ½ miles from our house to the end of it. It’s a
good place to walk in the afternoons for exercise.
Also in the picture, I have marked where some new homes area
being built. All of this is important information for my story.
About 6 months ago we saw this post on a neighborhood web
site (street names blotted out).
Because we had just had to part with a dog we loved, we
adopted him. As you can tell, he was a bit of a mess. We called him Boo Boo
because of his bow tie - you know, Yogi Bear’s little friend.
The person who had been looking after him told us that she
thought he had blood in his pee. She took him to her vet but by that time there
was no blood. After we got him, we took him to our vet. Sn x-ray discovered a mass in his kidney. The
vet said the mass might have been a tumor so we had blood work done. It turned
out that it was a mass of clotted blood. Our vet said he might have been kicked
by a deer if he got to close or injured by crawling under a fence. It was
pretty clear that she did not want to say that he had been kicked by a
person. Despite that information, we
were very relieved and, with some medication, the mass disappeared.
Our vet also discovered a growth on his eye, so we had it
removed. It was a lot bigger than we thought it would be, about the size of the
end of my pinkie finger. We were afraid it was cancerous and had a biopsy done.
Here is what he looked like after surgery.
Poor Boo Boo. He had a rough start with us. Not only did we
have the growth removed, we had him neutered to cure his marking habit. Of
course, we had him chipped. But, he turned out to be a great little dog. He
joined the one dog we paid for, the other dog we rescued after she had been
dumped (and after we raised the litter she had), and the kitten that we trapped
by mistake and wound up keeping. All these “free” animals were costing us a
fortune!
Anyway, around the time we got Boo Boo, some people had started
building two small houses across the street from us. One was for an elderly man
who was around ninety years old. The other was for his son and his family of
about seven kids. It turns out that they also have a Shih Tzu as well, a small
black and white dog who is very afraid of people.
I had polite conversations with both the father and son, but
not the rest of the family. One day I was out walking Boo Boo and saw the mom
with about four of her kids walking their Shih Tzu. I thought it would be nice
to introduce the two dogs so I hustled to catch up to them. When I reached
them, they more or less ignored me and Boo Boo as well. I thought – well, they
are not neighborly sorts.
A few months after that I was returning from my afternoon
walk (without Boo Boo) and ran into the old man who lived in one of the new
houses. He was standing in his driveway with the other Shih Tzu nearby. The old
man obviously did not remember me but we had a conversation anyway. When I
petted the Shih Tzu, the old man said, “I used to have a Shih Tzu but I
couldn’t handle him, so I took him to the nature preserve and let him go.”
With the coyotes, rattle snakes, coral snakes, foxes and
occasional mountain lion we have around here, that could be a death sentence
for a small dog. His statement was pretty shocking as it was, but then he
pointed to my house and said, “I understand that the people who live there have
him now.”
I was appalled. I said, “I live there.” The poor guy was
taken aback. I then knew why the mom and kids ignored me. They did not want to
give away the fact that they had abandoned Boo Boo.
So, I wonder, when they dumped Boo Boo, did they also kick
him when he tried to follow them as they were leaving? Nice people, eh?
So, mystery solved. I don’t think I am going to become fast
friends with the new neighbors.
