23 January, 2011

Bad Bad News

Before I start let me just tell you that everything is now fine.

On Thursday I took these cool photos and on Friday evening I was going to write a really inane post about them
Instead, just as I was getting ready to leave work on Friday, I got a call from Neil asking me if Molly was out the front of the house for any particular reason. After a few confused minutes of conversation, it turned out Guthrie was also out the front. I hung up from Neil and told him to look for the others and give me a ring right back. It took a few minutes for the badness of the situation to sink in. Eventually, I rang Neil back. The dogs were missing. I felt sick. They had literally ripped TWO bits of wood off the back of underneath of the house OFF with their TEETH (we had teeth marks to prove it) and squeezed into a small hole under the house, then there are quite a few places they can get out to the front of the house and away. Again at this point I mention the feeling sick. I rang the council, who were unhelpful.
I left work and rode my motorcycle home, I got home, changed and left the house to start searching for them, which Neil was already doing. I walked around the parks we normally take them for walks in. I looked in the creek we walk beside, hoping not to see black fuzzy bodies. After an hours or so of walking around, calling out to Clara and Conner, I went home. I called the council again, who were closed by this time and spoke to the after hours man, who was even less helpful, bordering on rude. I rang the lost dogs home and left a message on their answering machine. By this time, I had an enormous blister on my heal. I had to change into sandals for my other aimless depressing walks around the streets. I continued this, looking for little black fuzzy bodies, when I was in the street, until dark. Neil ordered pizza for us, our normal Friday fair. I could only eat two bits, again with the feeling sick. Neil continued to search, with a torch, until ten. At this point we went to bed, there was no real sleep here, as both of us got up a number of times to check if the dogs had returned to the front door and we trying to get in. It's amazing the sorts of noises you can imagine.
In the morning we got up around 7, ate and went looking again. What else could we do? The lost dogs home didn't open til 9am. I made it home again around 8.30am ish, my feet where hurting quite a lot my this point, as walking the streets and parks in sandals isn't really a great plan. The phone rang, it was the lost dogs home and they had Clara. Relief at this point is somewhat of an understatement, but oh my God, where is Conner! We jumped in the car and headed of to North Melbourne, arriving just before they opened their doors. After a whole lot of paper work, and a very upsetting look around the small dog cages to see if Conner was there, but miss identified (I could only walk down two isles before I was too upset and Neil had to do the rest), we got Clara back. To be honest, she didn't even seem pleased to see us! When we started driving home, the reason for this became apparent. She was exhausted, I don't think she had slept at all or at least, not much. Poor thing, she is used to her queen sized bed, not a blanket on concrete!
We were able to find out where she was found, and decided to start a new search there, as we assumed Clara and Conner would have hung out together. This area is nearly 1km from our home! (I'd put in a map, but you might be a burglar or strange stork-ie person, and I might not want you to know where I live).
So the search started again, but this time it must have been 10.30am or so, so there where heaps of dog walkers out in the park, I spoke to 20 or so. Neil, who was walking in the direction of our place spoke to heaps as well. After walking the park for ages. I walked an S shape of all the streets between the park and the street where Clara was found. I checked on google maps this morning, I walked about 3km, in this park and the streets nearby that morning. This was my 3rd or 4th trip out, I think I have worked out why my feet are so sore, I was carefully avoiding looking at them, so I wouldn't know how bad they were and I could keep looking. At around lunch time we went back home, getting increasingly despondent.
I was sitting at the computer, having been looking for more numbers to ring, and the phone rang. It was a Vet in East Hawthorne, they had my dog Yellow, what the? Then I remembered, when I micro chipped the puppies, they didn't have names yet, so we gave them their colored wool names, they had Conner (all this took .3 secs in my head, it ok) It turns out a man on his way home from work had picked Conner up, from the same area as Clara was found and taken him home (to East Hawthorne). He spent the night playing with the mans Pug. The man was ready to keep Conner and took him to the vet to check if he had a micro chip (thank god he did!) What a relief! At this point I rang my Mum, it was her birthday on Friday and I didn't want to give her a whole lot of worry as a present. So we drove to East Hawthorne and picked up Conner. He also didn't seem that happy to see us either, little bugger! I was really happy to see him though.
When we got home, Neil got to work repairing the dogs little bit of house renovation. Now if they want to get out, they will need to have a cordless drill and perhaps a crow bar.
So it's moral of the story time:
  • Don't go to work EVER
  • always stay at home with your dogs
  • maybe my dogs should wear collars, even if it will make a mark in their fur
  • make sure your dogs (and cats) are microchipped!!!

15 January, 2011

regrowth

So, remember how the other day I cut the crap out of a whole lot of bushes in the back yard? Any way, I noticed today when we were wipper snippering (not mowing, as our mower is stuffed and the grass was 3 feet tall, AGAIN) that one of the particularly pretty natives, that was looking a bit shit and getting a bit tall, is coming back with vengeance. I have always known that you can cut natives back really hard and they will come good, but it's a completely different thing to actually see it! How cool is this?:

14 January, 2011

No Camera

Yay I found it!!!! I also found the book I have been missing, the remote for the AC in the back room and all the other things that were beside the bed when we packed it up on Christmas morning! Yay. Neil then proceeded to pick on my packing method, cos the stuff was not on the top of a pile, it wasn't on the bottom either, so I say my method is fine. Anyway, got it and that's all I care about for the moment :)