A Doggie Nightmare

I had a disturbing dream last night.

There were these two dogs - a German Shepherd and a Huskie - male and female. Very nice dogs. They were roaming free in my neighborhood - I noticed that they had lots of tags on, so probably not strays. They said to me, "Oh, we live about 6 blocks from here - no big deal - we know where we are and where we live."

They were cute, playing with other dogs they saw on their route. Very happy dogs. Nice dogs. They were playing with my dog and then they seemed to become concerned about something - they looked lost. Not sure where to go next.

I decided to look at their tags, find an address and take them home - they were probably just a little out of their territory. I looked at the first dog's tag - there was a Rabies tag - mostly numbers, no real identification. There was a tag linking them to a microchip - okay, but still no address. Then I noticed that there was a package of flea medication hooked to the tags. Still no identification.

It dawned on me that these two very nice dogs had been abandoned and that their owner's had very carefully arranged their tags so that everyone would know they were licensed and that they had their next dose of a monthly flea medication. My next step would be to call the county to verify the Rabies tag and get the owner's phone number or have the people at the county do it. The same with the microchip information.

But what I realized in the dream was that these calls would be dead-ends. The phone numbers would be disconnected - the people had left town and abandoned these two dogs. I expressed my concern to passersby. They agreed that this had happened and isn't that too bad in this economy that someone would leave their dogs like this.

I knew that I would end up taking the dogs home because I can care for them.

I woke up in a sweat knowing that this scenario is probably playing itself out all over the country - nice dogs losing their homes because people can't afford to care for them. Not knowing what I could do about it really.

Except if I see two dogs running loose then I will know what to do. I will have to take them in. No questions asked.