Another Mouth to Feed

“You're not going to like this.....” my friend Michael began as he pulled on his coat and gloves and fumbled with his keys, “But I just can't let her be sent to the pound.”

“Who?” I asked but knew that it didn't matter. The sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach told me our already overrun household was about to be added to once again. A friend had picked up a dog running the streets - a young, three quarters starved and friendly female pit bull - animal control had been called and Michael unraveled at the thought of her being sent to them.

Futile as I knew it would be, I pointed out the obvious. He already had four, aggressive and unhousebroken dogs. The entire house looked like a landfill and reeked like an outhouse. He couldn't afford the care and feeding as it was, to add a 5^th dog was lunacy. She was bound to be in heat and full of worms. The love of dogs and his tenderheartedness notwithstanding, he was certifiable if he took her in. He was inviting mayhem. His dogs would kill her or she would kill one of them. I went on and on like a broken record but from the start I knew I'd lost.

“Take a leash and a collar,” I finally told him, “And a blanket or a couple of towels.”

“It's temporary,” he assured me, “Just until I can figure out what to do with her.”

Famous last words, I thought dismally.

A week in and it's even worse than I feared. She is, no doubt about it, sweet natured and amiable. She gets along with the other dogs reasonably well and I'm happy to have been wrong about that, at least so far. She's not a wild, frantic barker, which is a relief because one more would surely have pushed me over the edge. But she is a jumper-upper and hasn't a single clue about being house trained. How one medium sized dog can produce that many piles of dogshit is a mystery to me.

My first time caring for her when Michael leaves town is sketchy. As best I can determine, she likes to sleep and play under and around my desk so when I walk in, the desk lamp is on the floor and all the power to all the electronics has been unplugged. Another pillow has has been raggedly unstuffed and its contents strewn about the room. Not to be outdone, the yellow cur dog has broken through the barrier to get to the stash of paper towels and toilet paper in the bathroom and someone, I suspect the little pit, has overturned not one but two trash cans and left chewed up, plastic dog food containers spread from one end of the house to the other. The old pit gives me a sorrowful look, his innocent brown eyes are very convincing and the littlest one, the long haired chihuahua who is perched imperiously on the top of the couch, yawns and gives me her best “I had nothing to do with any of this” look.

There are days when I feel exactly the same way.