I've long maintained that the real news isn't in the front sections of the paper. It's in the classifieds. That's where the population is buying, selling, announcing, denouncing, overpopulating, trying to find someone to overpopulate with, dying losing, finding, looking for homes, renting homes, legalizing, auctionizing, dumping stuff for free free free, lying about Great Career Opportunities! and offering career opportunities for which most of us don't qualify.Perhaps the latter don't qualify, themselves; they're usually quarter page display ads near the classifieds. The same way I can say I don't live in the Downtown East Side, but have the privilege of DTES denizens rooting through my garbage anyway.
But since I found Craigslist, I am in Heaven. Now the folks who'd formerly spent bucks on an ad that read, Pbull pups, 6 wks, ready NOW, csh only, Sry, have the luxury of not only wildly embroidering the virtues of said pups, but opinionating on everything else. Then everyone opinionates on their wrongheaded opinions. Until the Mad Flaggers arrive and kill all opinions but their own.
This week, a particular posting really got my goat. CL pets is probably the most active section. There is the above, plus animal shelter ads, pet sitters and trainers, as well as enough doggie jackets to keep Paris Hilton feeling fashionable for a lifetime. They come and go, depending on the Mad Flaggers' moods and med levels. But it is understood you do not flag the Lost ads, no matter how many the frantic owner posts.
This week, some Grinch beyond grinchness asked the question, "How do you lose a dog, anyway?"
I responded, and my post was flagged almost immediately. Here it is, where the Mad Flagger(s) can't touch it:
I can't believe the cruelty of someone posting to question how a dog got lost. If the owner was careless, they're already blaming themselves big time.
I have always been very responsible with dogs. Nonetheless, here's how I lost them. I got them back every time, but still:
-The dog digs under the fence or leaps over it. My six month old pup leaped/climbed a four foot fence. I heard a noise and looked in my rear view mirror. She was galloping down the road after my car. And yes, there was someone at home, watching her. The noise I'd heard was my mother shrieking. She was galloping after the dog. In a nightgown. Oh, for a video;
-Someone let a whole pack of dogs out of my yard. By now, it was surrounded by six foot chain link. A non-doggie person attended my dogs' birthday party, and didn't latch the gate. The pack of Dobermans, Labs, terriers, mutts and a huge Rottie rampaged through the neighborhood for half an hour. And then down the driveway they came at full gallop. Good thing I'd baked an Alpo birthday cake. The smell was irresistible;
-Leashes break, collars slip. When I was a kid, my Boston Terrier was an escape artist. He could wiggle out of any collar. We'd find the little fiend growling at the neighbour or mounting the neighbour's dog;
-An ignorant person will lets the dog out. I left my pup in a friend's apartment while we went to a movie. Luckily, we couldn't get in. The pup was nowhere to be found. I called and called, and she came running around the street corner. She'd been whining, and the landlord decided the best solution was to throw her outside. Without tying her up;
-Some dogs are natural adventurers. My Doberman Karma, miffed that I'd left her on the farm while visiting town for the weekend, took a weekend of her own. She spent three days terrorizing the local jackrabbits with a pack of coyotes. Cool, elegant, slinky Karma. I'll bet that if she hadn't been spayed, she'd have found herself a wild husband and never come home. There'd be a long line of coyote-Doberman crosses roaming the Alberta Prairies. What would the designer dog people call these? Dobacoys? Coybermans? Whichever sounds more like $1000;
-Dogs will go right through a screen window after a cat or squirrel. I came home to a hole in the screen and no dog. The answering machine held a message from my vet. Two police officers had compassionately picked up my Lab Martha from the road, where someone had hit her and left her to die. She was bruised everywhere. The vet said, "Good thing Labs are made of rubber."
From then on, I either took her everywhere with me, or came home to a stiflingly hot house;
-A dog hit by a car but not critically injured will run a long distance, from shock. One of my dogs hit a little red MG. That's right, Ms. Impetuous ran into the side of the car, leaving a dent. This was while I was on a park side road, letting both dogs out. Sometimes the word Stay is negotiable. She ran about half a mile, with me running behind and yelling. It was like she'd lost her mind. I also once lost this dog for a while when she took off after a rabbit;
-They jump off apartment balconies. If there's a handy tree they can half-climb or bounce off of, dogs can scale remarkable heights. My neighbor's rescue dog, an Italian Greyhound, freaked so badly when she turned on the vacuum, he jumped out a second story window. Happily, the delicate little fella landed on a soft hedge.
I'm sure there are other interesting ways a dog can get lost. But of course, the original grinch-like questioner does not "attract" imperfect situations in his/her own life.
Copyright 2008 Reisa Stone
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