So this morning I posted on Facebook that my friends should prepare for a rant coming later today. But I have lots of praying friends who must have prayed for me, because now that I sit down to rant, I find that rant tempered by no small amount of Grace that certainly doesn’t come from my heart.
We have neighbors. Neighbors who have an unaltered female dog who had puppies a couple of months ago. She has one puppy left. I think they sold the others.
This dog is not leash trained. At all. Although the man who lives in the home can handle her. Sort of. The woman, not so much.
The dog, Brandy, has never been aggressive toward people, that I’m aware of. She has never barked at our dogs when we’ve been out walking them. Although we don’t walk on her side of the street if they have her out.
But Brandy hates cats, it seems.
This morning, when the woman had 60-70 pound Brandy on a flexi-lead, the dog got loose, ran to our porch where our mostly feral cat was eating breakfast. She attacked the cat. The woman finally got her under control, managing to get her back across the street into the garage.
The cat ran off. I have no idea if he’s injured. There’s no blood on the porch or sidewalk that I could see.
The woman came back over, tears streaming down her face, and apologized. She said she would pay for damages. I explained I don’t care about the broken flower pots and trampled plants. I just worried about our cat.
I realize that’s the risk of caring for feral cats. I do. I also realize that any one of our dogs can pull away from the leash at any time.
But this family has made no efforts to train this dog. They have bred her, probably hoping to make money from her. And they use a flexi-lead on a very strong, large dog.
Do I think I could call my Jack back to me if he got loose from me and decided to herd the deer that were in the field this morning. No, I doubt I could.
So I’m trying to be forgiving. I’m trying to extend grace to this woman.
And I’m praying our little feral cat who’s managed to survive 10 years is okay and not laying somewhere injured and in pain.
Grace.
I need it.
Colletts on the Move 