You know you might have an extraordinary stray dog problem in your neighborhood when you can’t drive .6 of a mile from your house to a restaurant, where you will be having a meeting about stray dogs, without passing a loose stray dog.
So here he is – the “other black dog, the one with the tail.” He looks pretty bad. He has skin problems, an eye infection, bad teeth, he is a hot mess.
Thanks to my refusal to completely unload the car after the Costco haul on Saturday, I had dog food in the car. I grabbed some food and used my best husky whisperer tactics and backed my way up into his space in a non threatening way. He was not interested in the food. He eventually walked up to my back and sniffed my back from top to bottom. He gave me a nudge in the back.
It is very difficult to hold still when that first point of contact is made and you can’t see the dog. For a split second, you don’t know if they are just sniffing you or about to eat you…it took a decent amount of composure not to let my reflexes react to him.
Eventually we got to the point where I could scratch his head. I tried several times before I was able to slip leash him. When I did, he jumped back and the slip lead tightened on his neck. He did a pretty good freak out dance but it didn’t take long to settle him down and for him to realize that if HE wasn’t pulling on it, the leash wouldn’t pull on him. But he also quickly realized he could bite the leash and that would be that. He grabbed the lead in his mouth in about 2 second flat he chewed it in half. He is now wearing a little blue string collar – but I’m sure he will get that off in no time flat too.
He put distance between us and went and hid under the neighbor’s tree. Having no other way to catch him, and being late for a meeting, I left him to settle down. Before I left, I had a brief conversation with the homeowner whose yard he was in. She said he really liked her dog and had been hanging out. I said I would try to come back with a better leash and try again. So here we are… time to make another homemade leash that is more bite proof and time to borrow a catch pole…or maybe just see if Duck Team 6 can come out and I’ll just have a cocktail.
Either way, if you see him, please call him in to 311 and report the time and location. I’m not sure DAS will be able to catch him, but we need to document him with the city.