Monday Morning

It is Monday here and after a break, I could just move on into summer vacation. I won't though it is back to the last bit of school.
On Sunday morning about three in the morning. I woke up to the sound of a dog howling. Since Sasha sleeps under my bed, I knew it wasn't her. I have written before that stray animals show up here all of the time. I knew it was a dog that had wandered in and I hoped it wouldn't dig in the back yard and get my chickens.

When I got up later that morning this was what I saw.

I think he is a Bull Mastiff. He is so tall and big that he comes up to my waist. He makes Sasha look like a puppy. He is very sweet, and for such a giant of a dog, he is very careful how he walks. He has fresh scars on him like he has been in bad fights. Fairly recent. He follows my husband around like a shadow. He was wonderful with all of the little kids yesterday. He ignores the cats. They are very mad about it though.
I am going to call the vet and see if he has a chip so maybe I could return him to his owners.

If  I don't find the owners, I think we will keep him. I have to see though how he is around my chickens. I really wish this didn't happen. I see his poor hurt sides and face and legs and I just can't take him to the animal shelter. I know I should, but people here can't take care of animals and they just let them go. So the amount of animals the shelters have is terrible and the number of animals the dog pound puts down just makes me sick.
He is too nice a dog for that. Do you know how bad I wish sometimes I had a hard heart?  I could just look at a poor lost animal and just not get attached.

He has the nicest big brown eyes. Last night he was howling and I went out to check on him. I sat down in a chair and he put his face in my lap and just cried. It broke my heart. Earlier in the day, after I had fed him and watered him he was sleeping because he was so exhausted. I stood and listened to his doggy nightmares.
He has been through so much and I just can't face the thought of any animal being treated so bad.

So, another hobo shows up in April.

Now I am off to call the vet.
~Kim~

Well since writing the above post. I thought I would add this to the bottom. He is a lovely dog but I had not yet took him to the back yard to meet my chickens. When I did he went for them like to kill them. He attacked the fence where they were.
I brought him back up to the porch and I had let Sasha out to see how they would be in the back yard and he attacked her doing this punching thing with his feet and he punched her twice and knocked her down before I could get her back in the house.
I decided that I had to take him to the SPCA so I did. I cried the whole way home but I have new chicks coming is a few weeks and I just couldn't face the thought of walking out sometime and finding my flock dead.
I wish it had worked out differently.

A sad but very realistic Kim