Dogs!!!!

I love dogs, really I do. This morning dogs have been an annoyance though, not necessarily through any fault of their own; they are just being dogs. My first encounter with an annoying dog, being itself, was finding the neighbor from up the street's dachshund rooting through my other neighbor's recyclables. I yelled at the dog once but it ignored me. I did find it amusing that it appeared at one point as if the dog was putting a cup it had been chewing on back in the recycling bin. Overall, seeing the dog rooting through trash and chewing on wadded up aluminum foil was too much though. I not only had visions of all of the trash ending up blown into my yard, but I had concerns about the dog getting a bowel obstruction, internal bleeding, or some other malady in addition to concerns that it could get run over by the trash truck, or someone in a hurry to get to work.

I thought about taking the dog home to its owners, but I suspected that they probably weren't dressed, and that was why their dog was running loose, and I don't get the impression that we are on the best of terms with them anyway (I'm not entirely sure why, but I have an idea...most likely just differences and probably misunderstandings; more on their part than ours, I suspect.). I deferred taking the dog home to the owners because I didn't feel like initiating more conflict and getting in their face first thing on a Monday morning. I did chase the dog away from the trash it was exploring, however, and then started walking/herding it toward home. When it looked like it might try to take a meandering path and go somewhere else, I picked the dog up and carried to almost to its front door. I have no idea if the owners will know I did that, and I really don't care.

I'm debating whether or not to mention the issue of loose and unsupervised dogs to the HOA, without mentioning any names. People know who they are... Seriously, if you can afford to drive a late model Mercedes, can you not at least afford to put in an invisible fence if not a regular one? It's not fair to the dog or the rest of your neighbors when you let your animal roam loose. Depending on the time of day, your pet runs the risk of being run over or becoming food for coyotes. Letting your dog roam about unsupervised just is not a loving or responsible thing to do.

My other dog annoyance this morning came from one of my own dogs. Again, she was just doing what dogs do. She is a herding dog, and she may have been trying to herd me. I just didn't know she was there, and when she cut me off, I crashed right into her nearly knocking her over because I was moving quickly and not anticipating impediments to my movement, or obstacles. All is forgiven though, because I love dogs, really, I do.