Dog to English Translator

[clean]

Maybe they left food for the dogs in a feeder?

Maybe they fill up on 'finger food' over the course of the day!

[secundem_artem]

Mrs. Artem was taking Artem Dog (toy breed 9 pounds) for a walk when a woman walking 3 huskies lost control of one of them and attacked Artem Dog.  A $360 vet bill later for stitches, rabies booster, antibiotics and pain pills.  We are unsure of who the woman with the huskies is and what to do next.  Clearly, one of her dogs needs to be taken away and evaluated for aggression.  And I would not mind my $360 back from the person who got us into this mess.

Anybody got any suggestions for what to do next??

[mamselle]

Call your local police; it's possible they have dealt with this person before and may even know who it is.

Take pictures of your dog and of the bills and of the MD's records on diagnosis and prognosis as evidence.

Call a responsible animal-rights group that can put you in touch with a lawyer (they may also know who this is).

Write up a summary of events--use your post here as a starting point and add time, location, other details--to clarify that your dog posed no threat to the other dog, etc.

Good luck.

M.

[apl68]

This is sad to hear.  I hope Artem Dog is better soon.

[secundem_artem]

Thanks all for the kind thoughts and suggestions.

Animal control was called.  They sent over an officer who took a report and said they will patrol the neighborhood for the next 10 days and see if they can find her.  Since having 3 huskies is outside of local animal codes (only allow 2 large + 1 small) it's unlikely any of her dogs are registered so they can be looked up in some muni database.

Artem Dog appears to be recovering OK but he's clearly a bit shaken up and off his feed. We're watching out for infection and spoiling the dickens out of him.

[mamselle]

Awww...extra virtual hugs and scritches from me...

M.

[Thursday's_Child]

Scritches to Artem-dog from me, too!  I hope he's eating by now.

Speaking of eating, my mutt has gotten to the point where he will eat a corner of toast that has avocado on it.  After he spits it out onto the carpet, that is...

[aside]

So sorry to hear about Artem Dog!  Hope his recovery goes well with no lingering effects.

[apl68]

While visiting my parents over the weekend I took their dog out for a walk up the lane to the back of their property.  It was a fine day out.  On the way back down the lane, he ran ahead of me and got out of sight around the bend.  When I reached their yard, I saw him on the far side of it heading up the power line cut through the woods.  They had warned me that he likes to go up that way to visit some neighbor dogs (It's a rural road, and their nearest neighbors live well out of sight of their house).  I had no idea he would get that far ahead of me and escape that easily!

I hiked up the power line, around the fence of the cemetery on top of the hill, inspected the neighbors' yard, and went back down the road.  No sign of him on the road, and nearly no traffic, so I knew he was in no immediate danger of getting run over.  I went to the house and confessed that I had lost him.  Dad was taking a nap, so Mom and I drove back up the hill to the neighbors' house.  There seemed to be nobody home, so we walked around their yard trying to find the dog.  The neighbors' dogs were out and came over.  They were quite friendly.  Then the one we were looking for appeared.  We collected him and took him home.

It was kind of nice in one way.  He's almost eight years old, and obviously still has plenty of get-up-and-go and adventurous spirit.  It was a wonderful afternoon for a walk.  But it looks like he's going to be spending more of his outdoor time on a leash from now on.

[mamselle]

Is it a lab, by any chance? They're often gregarious and far-ranging.

I used to house-sit for folks whose 8-year-old lab, Gracie, could just walk for hours.

I used to say that, for Gracie, a stranger was just a friend she hadn't licked yet.

M.

[apl68]

No, this is a Chihuahua, believe it or not.  A remarkably large, muscular Chihuahua who has spent much of his life outdoors in a rural area.  Now that he's in canine middle age, I'm surprised he can still move that fast!

[mamselle]

Oh, yes, those little dogs can indeed go.

Another friend had a little pug-Chihuahua mix that I used to walk.

He was 9 at the time, but he would run lickety-split all over the dog park.

Good thing it had fences that were too tall for him to breach...

M. 

[apl68]

Although we've never seen him do it, we suspect that he goes under the side fence of the cemetery at the top of the steep hill that the power line cut climbs, cuts across the cemetery, and goes out the gate or through the gaps beside it.  The front corner of the cemetery is on the very edge of a steep bank overlooking the road that even a small dog would have trouble navigating without tumbling down the bank, while the back of the cemetery is all woods and would involve a substantial detour.

[mamselle]

Sorry, thread hijack in progress...how old is the cemetery?

M.

[apl68]

I believe the oldest interment dates from sometime in the mid-1960s.  Which would make it perhaps a decade older than the house Dad built when I was a kid.  It's probably the youngest cemetery in the county.  Although the cemetery is up a hill, through the woods, and around a bend in the road from us and can't be seen from the house, its residents were our nearest "neighbors."  Which seemed a little spooky to me when I was a child.