I really think that this world thinks it’s all a practical joke.
Yesterday morning the kids spotted 2 beagle puppies (not tiny adorable, but still under a year old) in our front yard. So I go out, put them each on a leash, assigned each child a rotating schedule of seconds to hold said leashes and called the number on the tags. Not a working number....I think I muttered something like "oh yay" under my breath.
Mind you, while I'm attempting to accomplish this, my dogs are going ape trying to play with these new and very playful dogs. If this town was a normal town they wouldn’t be able to see the dogs because we would have normal privacy fencing. Because this town is not normal they put 4 ft chain link fencing as the fencing of choice…so not only do my dogs see these dogs they are being super vocal about it. Which means that every dog in the neighborhood is going crazy. It was so loud I actually yelled at my dogs to shut the hell up (oh I was mature I tell ya). I ended up putting my dogs on our enclosed patio because then there was a house to buffer the super loud barking.
So while 5 kids are super excited and trying to fight over who gets to hold the leash and apparently trying to talk over every dog in the neighborhood I call the other number….which happens to be the vets office. Vet gives me the owners address, and it’s right around the corner a few streets down. So like every sane dog rescuer I load up all kids, 2 dogs, and drive over thinking this will be an easy quick fix and I can get back to listening to my children argue and bargaining for x-box in no time.
As we round the corner we see that there is a for sale sign in front of yard and from the looks of it not a soul home. I begin to knock on every neighbors house right around this house in hopes that I can get the story on this house of pups. Apparently, I look like a serial killer in my old navy skirt and tee shirt and flip flops with my son standing beside me in his oh so urban target tee shirt because no one is answering their doors. You must be thinking that they are all at work or doing their Friday errands at 8am, which I would think as well, BUT THERE ARE PEOPLE HOME BECAUSE I CAN HEAR THEM INSIDE AND THERE ARE 2 CARS IN THE DRIVEWAYS OF EVERY HOUSE I KNOCKED ON.
Clearly I don’t want to live in that neighborhood because if I was in dire need of anything they are either all having sex or are too lazy to get up and get the friggin door.
Finally after 3 more phone calls with the vets office who is trying to help me by contacting all other numbers from the owners, they get the owner on the line who tells them that they can't come get them right now and guess what…THEY ARE IN LOUISIANA ON VACATION…I'm then told that the owner will call me shortly.
Who in the world leaves puppies in this heat while on vacation???? You could tell that they probably dumped over their bowls prior to getting out because they drank like racehorses and were so hungry (I didn’t feed them because I didn’t want to cause an upset stomach which then resulted in a mess I would have to clean until I knew what we were going to be doing with these doggies) when they first arrived in my yard.
When the call comes from the owner, I explain to the lady that I can take them to her vets office, or a kennel if she would like because her two puppies, with my two dogs and 5 kids might just make me jump off the tallest building in this town…which granted is only 3 stories but I bet it would buy me a nice quiet stay in the hospital…. And just like that she suddenly remembers that her sister can probably come get them. (you must know when and when not to let your crazy fly. This was most definitely a case of when)
45 min later…we were back to two dogs. In that 45 minutes I found out that beagles will howl at everything, and will howl nonstop and don't seem to tire of howling. They howled so much that I really thought that I might start howling with them. I could have a veritable Vienna Boys Choir of howling if I got my kids in on the action too. Just for the record, I have actively marked beagle off my list of possible breeds should I ever be insane enough to get another dog.
I figured since we were on such a roll already I might as well double down and hit the grocery store...because that's always a barrel of laughs when we come rolling through.
