Is it just me, or does every neighborhood have a house where all the stray animals congregate? Well, in our neighborhood, that house must be ours. Now, we have a lot of animals there by choice - today's count is 3 cats, 1 hamster, 1 dog, 3 fish, and 2 turtles (the last mouse died last week). We have recently acquired a feral kitten, who shares Ripley's food out on the front porch; she's warming up to us, but we still can't pet her for more than a second or two; she's not going to join the crew inside (I will fight you all the way, boys) because I want new carpet and furniture - not kitten-friendly. And then there is our neighbor's dog.
Now, they take a bit of explaining, these people next door, but suffice it to say they are not very social, and I am not really sure why they have a dog at all - she should probably be taken away from them, because they do not take care of her at all. Well, it didn't take too long for that dog to realize that our dog, who lives outside almost exclusively, has a 24/7 meal arrangement, so every time she was free, she spent all of her time in our yard. She's a nice dog, so not really a problem, except that she is always there when she is free. She waits with my kids to get on their buses, she watches me get the groceries out of the car, she chases the cats around, and we think she had a litter of our dog's pups (she had somebody's pups) last summer, but have no clue what happened to them (knowing them, they probably dumped them along a road somewhere - long story). This poor dog either needs to come live with us permanently, or her people need to chip in an occasional bag of dog Chow, which I know they would never do.
Does this happen to anybody else, or do all these animals see us coming a mile away? There must be some underground railroad for animals, and we are the only stop....
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