Yesterday we had a surprise visitor, a young lady from Animal Services. Now since the pandemic started we haven’t received many visitors. For some reason we didn’t think we were going to break out the sweet tea and cookies. She was very polite and asks to talk to the dog owner, how does someone own a dog, I have a great friend that happens to be a dog. To simplify the conversation with the young lady, I took the part of dog owner. She informed me that they at animal services had received a complaint, that allegedly when Brandy is walking in the park her number twos were not being picked up. We were dumbfounded and couldn’t think of a response but to say “No”. The young lady informed us that if another complaint was received with proof, that a ticket would be issued. Proof, what kind of proof? Is someone going be following us with a camera hoping to find a Number Two to turn in? What a strange situation.
After the young lady from animal services left we started to get our thoughts together. Who could have made the complaint? Very few people know where we live and you can count on one paw the number of people in the area that know us. Those that do know us, know how important our walks in the parks are to us. Why would anyone make a complaint? We would never want to leave anything in the park besides maybe a footprint.
How do we deal with this situation? Do we stay home bound, to avoid the possibility of a ticket and confrontation. Take some time from walking in the park until things cool down with the fuzz or is that fur, I’m not sure what the street lingo would be for Animal Services. Sitting back isn’t our style, we will be hitting the trails again and we will face the challenge head on.
Taking our first morning walk since the visit from Animal Services we found ourselves looking over our shoulders to see if anyone was following us. On Brandy’s first number two, we made sure that if anyone was watching, they had a good view that the two ended up in a small vanilla scented black bag. We continued into the park and did our normal exploring. Shoulder checks from time to time, is anyone back there? No one around. Every time Brandy stopped for a number one, a thought, Brandy is a girl, could her squat be mistaken for her leaving a two? Looking to see if anyone is watching, still no one around. Could they be lurking in the trees?
Let them lurk, we are not going to let this take away from our experience in the park. During our walk, we hadn’t seen anyone else until we turned deeper into the trees. Then this fellow showed up , Mr. Hawk, Mr. Cooper Hawk. He started following us around until we were back on the main path heading out of the park. Could he be the one that made the complaint? He was very vocal, unfortunately we couldn’t understand what he was saying. We thought he was talking to his lady, that was flying on the other side of the field. He could have been trying to tell us something. Maybe he heard about our situation and wanted to let us know he had our backs.
Our daily walks are an important part of our therapy for both of us. For Brandy, a Black Lab, she looks forward to the opportunity to explore. We won’t allow a petty individual to take the opportunity from us to experience and appreciate our time in the parks in Brandy’s senior years.
Brandy was productive today, two Number Two Trophies..
This is a nice post. 🙂