Time for a personal story from my life.
My mother spends half the year in a house we have in the country, travelling on and off to the city. The neighbor's dog started coming to my mom's house and would not leave until my mother went back to the city. The dog would even spend days after my mom left sulking in our back yard, waiting for my mother to come back. Despite having an owner that fed him and took care of him, the dog chose my mother to be his "owner" for some reason.
My mother is not an excessive animal lover. She just respects animals without imposing herself on them, or seeking their company actively. She's never owned a pet herself. She joked about the dog messing about with her garden and fully supported the neighbor in their attempts to prevent the dog from sneaking and coming to my mother's place.
The neighbors tried everything, including fortifying their fence. The dog always found a way. In the end, jealousy took over, and our neighbor gave the dog, 8 years of age at that time, away to another person living on the other side of the village, where it was put on a chain....not for any particular reason, it is just the way those people keep dogs.... The new owner came back to our neighbor within weeks, concerned, to ask if they'd take the dog back because it stopped eating. By the time the neighbor went back, the had dog died.
Needless to say how my mother feels about that. She's a woman of age and now she can't forgive herself she said nothing to our neighbor at the time in order to prevent what happened.
Did she do the right thing by our neighbor, probably yes. Did she do the right thing for the dog? Definitely no.
Given the chance, animals do choose their owners, sadly in this case it cost this dog its life. It died lonely, miserable and disappointed.
My mother spends half the year in a house we have in the country, travelling on and off to the city. The neighbor's dog started coming to my mom's house and would not leave until my mother went back to the city. The dog would even spend days after my mom left sulking in our back yard, waiting for my mother to come back. Despite having an owner that fed him and took care of him, the dog chose my mother to be his "owner" for some reason.
My mother is not an excessive animal lover. She just respects animals without imposing herself on them, or seeking their company actively. She's never owned a pet herself. She joked about the dog messing about with her garden and fully supported the neighbor in their attempts to prevent the dog from sneaking and coming to my mother's place.
The neighbors tried everything, including fortifying their fence. The dog always found a way. In the end, jealousy took over, and our neighbor gave the dog, 8 years of age at that time, away to another person living on the other side of the village, where it was put on a chain....not for any particular reason, it is just the way those people keep dogs.... The new owner came back to our neighbor within weeks, concerned, to ask if they'd take the dog back because it stopped eating. By the time the neighbor went back, the had dog died.
Needless to say how my mother feels about that. She's a woman of age and now she can't forgive herself she said nothing to our neighbor at the time in order to prevent what happened.
Did she do the right thing by our neighbor, probably yes. Did she do the right thing for the dog? Definitely no.
Given the chance, animals do choose their owners, sadly in this case it cost this dog its life. It died lonely, miserable and disappointed.
, which she would have never done. As far as I am aware, she's never criticized the neighbor about what they did. She's old enough to know that there is no point barking the wrong tree. However, It doesn't stop her from feeling really guilty about the dog and pouring out her heart to me every so often, because I am a different type of "tree"...
