A Rough Evening

Everything started out great last night when I got home from work but quickly went down hill as the night progressed. I am watching my friend's 7 month old Border Collie, Vita, in addition to having my 2 dogs at home and Chad is out of town this week. No big deal, right? I let everyone out when I got home and we played in the yard for a few minutes. When we came inside I decided I would feed the dogs, take a shower, and eat my dinner. All of that went as planned. After every ones dinner had settled we went back outside for some more play time. My girls were loose in the backyard and Vita had on her collar with a 6 foot leash attached in case I needed to get a hold of her. Unfortunately we don't have a fenced in backyard but since my 2 are never outside without us it really hasn't been a big deal. So the three dogs were running around having a great time chasing each other when one of the neighbors hound dogs decided to visit. When we are in the backyard you can't see the neighborhood street so he came through the front and side yard to get to us. Well my 2 aren't exactly friendly when it comes to strange dogs entering their territory. Eve ran up to the back deck and I told Aries to lay down and stay. I reached for Vita's leash while telling the hound to go home. Aries is in heat right now so he wasn't going anywhere. Vita got nervous with all the commotion and managed to back out of her collar. Now I have one dog on the deck (good) one in a down stay (good) a 7 month old puppy loose that is nervous (bad) and an intact male hound trying to make friends with Aries (very bad). Oh yeah did I mention I am all alone? I got hold of Vita's scruff but couldn't get to her collar because I was too worried about keeping the hound away from Aries. I then grabbed the end of the hound's leash he was dragging and needed a plan. I looked around and knew I couldn't get Vita, Aries, and Eve all back in the house without the hound trying to get in too. I was worried if I let Aries out of her down stay he might try harder to get to her and he was already pulling me to the point that I fell in the wet grass. He probably weighted more than all three of the others put together. I definitely didn't want him in the house because he was filthy and smelly. So I looked around and noticed the shed where we keep the mower and other yard stuff. I dragged the hound over to the the door while holding on to Vita's scruff so she wouldn't get loose and bolt. The shed is old and the doors don't close correctly so we have a couple of blocks in front of them to keep them from coming open. I kicked the blocks out of the way, asked Vita to sit and stay hoping she would do it for the few seconds I needed two hands to shove the very large, smelly, gross hound into the shed. Vita was wonderful and did exactly what I told her to do. Finally after what seemed like hours the hound was locked up and all my dogs were safe. I got Vita's collar and leash put back on and let them all back into the house. Now I had go back to the shed to get the neighbors number so I could call them that tell them to come pick up their dog. Well of course they didn't answer the phone. They live about 4 houses down from us so I walked him home and asked that they please keep him in their yard so he doesn't wander into mine ever again! When I got back home I took shower number 2 because I was disgusting from wrestling with the hound and decided we would all stay inside for the rest of the evening.

It wasn't the hound's fault for coming in my yard or being disgustingly gross and dirty. I blame my neighbors for not keeping him in their yard and taking better care of him. They had no idea he was out roaming the neighborhood causing trouble. I love dogs but really I only love clean well behaved dogs! Especially when I am pregnant and home alone! I hope one day I will look back on this and laugh because I am sure if someone had gotten this on camera it would be hilarious to watch me struggle and try and figure out how to handle all four dogs at once given the situation. Our next house will definitely have a fenced in backyard!