Strange Doggy Doings...

I have mentioned my neighbors here before. Their names are Buford and Brenda. They rent from another nearby neighbor. I don't see Buford much, keeps his nose to the grind stone to feed a bunch of stair steped kids. Brenda has too much time on her hands.

They got a couple of dogs who lay in the road and if the newspaper comes after I have left for work they get it and tear it up in the cow field that seperates our houses. No big deal, the Lufkin Daily, a once proud Pulitzer prize winner is somewhat in decline, at least the print version is. More features online these days. Burford and Brenda are poor folks and I got considerable more than 50 cents in my pocket if I want hard copy, so I let the paper thing go.

The strange doggy doings is that Brenda has seemed to adopt my dogs. Kind of started last weekend, I was home alone, stero was blaring kind of lost to myself what with my better half at work and there is a knock at the door, only the screen as the weather has been so mild and Brenda burst right in. I'm a bit startled, she is a big ol loud gal and she starts telling me my dogs are at her house in the laundery room. She says she has not seen her dogs. I note that I have seem them on the highway and shereportslater that she tracked them down, a neighbor had taken them in to the "vet" ,and it cost $185 to bail them out.

So bear with me here, I'll try to cut to the chase. The last really cold night Brenda leaves a note on the door, "I have your dogs call me and I'll let them out they were cold." Couple of days later, a telephone message, " I am gone to town, be back in an hour, I'll let your dogs out then." Last night the dogs apparently slept in all night in their landury room.

Tonight, no dogs around. I march down there, careful not to trip over a kids toy in the dark and beat on the door. It takes 5 minutes to summon someone.All the while I can hear dogs sniffing on the other side of the door and now and then catch a glimspe of them through the curtain, Finely Brenda pokes her big head out, relases them reports they were cold. I ask if the dogs are bothering them. I report that the dogs have dog houses to get in when cold. I mention that I like for my dogs to come when they are called and I offer to pen them up.

Now stop me if wrong. Most dogs in North America generally have it better than most people in the third world. As my little dogs sleep on my living room couch tonight I pray for all those poor folk. I try not to get too wound up about dogs, I like them of course, but I need to know. Do these neighbors seem weird to you?