Doing some venting

Post # 152
I love dogs.  I don't like scary dogs.  To me, pit bulls and dobermans are scary..along with a whole list of big dogs...and  I know there are people that absolutely love them and I am glad you do.  I just don't want a dog so strong I can't control him if need be....such as when HE is angry.  I guess I mentally scar easily.  When I was in high school a big dog jumped the fence and killed my dog.  For most of my life he was my only friend...i know that sounds like an oh wahhh sad story but I grew up in the original dysfunctional family and we were very isolated...never had anyone over to our house.  We were practically the only house on the block except for the older woman next door who hated us.  My little Boston bulldog was my constant companion.  We must have had him at least 10 years............at the time as long as I could remember & I must have been 16.  I was crushed when the neighbor's dog chewed him up.  Then when I was in the hospital having my first child a grandmother was also in the hospital.  The lovable, sweet tempered pit bull that she always slept with when she visited her daughter had a nightmare or something and attacked the grandma as she slept.  She lost a leg. Almost lost her life.   When my youngest grandson was maybe 4 he was visiting me at my son's home and when I opened the door to let my daughter and my grandsons in my son's Great Dane came up behind me, grabbed my grandson, who is a small child anyway and his jaws went around my grandson and left shallow puncture wounds in the middle of his back and the middle of his stomach...that is how big the Great Dane's mouth was.  I loved that Great Dane.  I lived with my son & daughter-in-law at the time and the Dane often slept with me.  It was my son & daughter-in-law's home & dog, not mine and they took me in when I was so broke I couldn't afford rent even though I was working full time and had 2 part time jobs (and had a lot of medical bills).  After that I was terrified of that great dane because it took 3 adults to get him pulled outside, him snarling all the while.  Luckily I was pulling on the dog with every bit of strength I had before he really had a chance to chop down and puncture my grandson's liver or something.  So...that is why I will never own a dog that is so large it is stronger than me and why I don't like living next door to large dogs.  The people next door to me had 2 maybe 5 lb yorkies.  They didn't scare me a bit! Sometimes they had a pit bull visit and I did not like the looks of his jaws or his bark. The Friday of Labor Day Weekend they moved out and some other people moved in.  First Sunday I saw a pit bull and one doberman.  Monday there was a pit bull and  two dobermans.  The dobermans followed me to my mailbox which is across the street.  The neighbor's yard is only fenced across the front and doesn't attach to mine on the side so there is a big gap a grown man can walk through (so it was easy for the doberman to get out to follow me).  That evening I saw a guy out there with a piece of chain link wiring it up to cover that hole.  I thought great, I guess the dobermans are not just visiting. And putting up that piece of chain link--- Big deal---the entire back of their lot is unfenced!!!  All weekend I had to keep my doggie door locked so my dogs (schnauzers, shihtzu and a schnauzer-beagle mix...oh and i had my beagle grand dog for the weekend too) anyway, I had to keep the doggie door shut so they couldn't get out in the back yard because the neighbor dogs and mine just growled at each other through my chain link fence like they would eat each other up given the chance.  Keeping my dogs out of our back yard was pretty annoying.  Today there was a pit bull, a little schnauzer and the two dobermans on the other side of the fence growling at my dogs when I let them out first thing this morning.  I had been praying all weekend that the people with the big dogs were just there for the weekend helping the other people move and all of them would be gone SOON. Well, I came home this afternoon and there were the above mentioned dogs plus THREE dobermans.  When I saw 3 dobermans that was it.  I went next door.  All 3 dobermans are just skin and bones and when I got in the yard with them I discovered they have ticks so huge even I could see them.  To their credit the dobermans didn't bark at me when I opened their gate and marched up to knock on the door.  Maybe it was the steam coming out of my ears and the stinky eye I gave them.   The woman comes to the door, sees me eying the huge ticks on the three dobermans that have surrounded me.  Yes, she knows our dogs wanted to fight through the fence all weekend. All of our dogs barked at each other all night long.  She says all weekend long when she heard me yelling for my dogs to shut up and get in the house her dogs listened and stopped barking and ran up on their porch.  I just glared at her and she saw me eying the dogs ticks.  Yes, they have ticks. she says at the place they just moved out of she kept them in pens that "were just tick factories." Great.  I'm thinking I will have to invest in gallons of heavy duty tick spray for my yard.  It gets better...she says they also have .......I forgot how many, but several (4?) doberman pups in the garage in the back that she needs to find homes for.  One of the skinny dog's pups.  Wonderful.  So we have at least 7 Dobermans next door, a schnauzer, which is fine with me, and a pit bull. I am glaring at her and she says she guesses she needs to get that dog spayed.  I just looked at her then  I locked my eyes on the most pitiful doberman and said did you just get him from the pound or something---he is terribly skinny.  She says uh, no, he is very old.  I tried to keep my cool while letting her know I was concerned about her big dogs because I don't want them to poison my dogs or something but now I am wondering....does this lady have a little puppy mill going?  My niece just emailed me this morning about a lot of dachshunds that were rescued from a puppy mill near Lubbock.  I have to go to sleep now since I just typed puppy mall  instead of mill and couldn't figure out how to spell rescue....and worry about it tomorrow but I am going to have nightmares about those giant ticks all of the remaining night left.