Stupid Pet Owners

Maybe I was naive in thinking that my two months away from school meant I was free from dealing with idiots. Only now, instead of idiot parents, I'm dealing with idiot pet owners.

This past Saturday was a gorgeous, cool, sunny day - just the right day to get the lawn mowed, and some mulch laid down and needed yard work done. So, hubby gets out the riding mower and starts working on the yard. After a bit, he notices a pair of big goofy dogs running around the neighborhood, which isn't good because we live right off a fairly busy street with a high speed limit. One misstep and these dogs are goners. Fortunately, the dogs were hot, saw our garage was open and came in and plopped down in the shade.

We gave them a big bowl of water, which they lapped up, and discovered they had collars and tags on them. Since the house they belonged to was down the block, hubby walked down to knock on the door to let the owners know we had their pets. No answer. Well, we didn't want them to continue running loose in the neighborhood, and we needed to work in the back yard, so we took them back there, put the bowl of water under a shady tree, and basically locked them in our yard so they would get loose.

These are two really nice, friendly dogs. They wrestled, played fetch with a ball and water bottle, ran around, and generally were a lot of fun. In other words, some pretty nice animals to have in your life.

Finally, about six hours later we see another vehicle at the house the dogs belong to and I go ring the doorbell. After about 5 minutes, a lady answers the door, looking beyond confused. She explains that she works nights and just got up (It is 4:30 in the afternoon, and when my dad worked nights, he was up by about 2:00). Honestly, I'm not sure if she just has trouble waking up or if she was stoned.

I introduced myself and told her that I had her dogs, Lucky and Star, in my yard.

She blinked.

I explained how they were running loose in the neighborhood and that we had given them water and put them in the backyard so they were safe and not dead on the street.

"Oh." she says.

I see that I'm not getting very far with this beacon of stupidity so I kind of decided to nudge her along and suggest that she get their leashes or something and come get her dogs since we had to go somewhere and they probably should be back in their yard.

"Oh," she says, finally perking up, "I don't touch animals."

What the ???? You have two dogs and you don't touch animals?

"They are your dogs, right?" I ask.

"Oh yeah, but I don't touch animals," she insists again.

"You do want them back, right?" I ask. At this time I'm beginning to think that these dogs would have been better off if I'd never found their idiot owner.

"Oh yeah, but I don't touch animals." Okay, I get it lady. You don't freaking touch animals, so what's your plan B?

Finally she mutters something about calling her husband and telling him to go get the dogs. Hubby is apparently not home at the time. I again tell her where I live, tell her we're leaving for a prior engagement, and it really would be a good idea to fetch her pets.

She closes the door.

We wait around for a while, hoping her husband (who I suspect had these dogs before he married Miss I Don't Touch Animals, in which case, he'd have been better off with the dogs, and ditching her). He doesn't show and we decided we have to get going.

When we return later that night, the dogs are gone and we assume (our gate wasn't locked) that the husband came and got them.

No note, no thank you, no nothing.

Idiots. Those dogs deserve better.