Strays

It's 7:48 and I could crawl into bed right now.  It's dark outside, and I've gotten very little sleep for, oh, um, just the past two weeks.

If you haven't yet figured it out, I have a bleeding heart when it comes to animals.  It's a little ridiculous.  I've been known to cry when walking into animal shelters, two of my three animals are rescues, half the dogs in my immediate family are rescues/"I'll take this dog off your hands before you turn it over to the shelter" situations, and most of all, I CANNOT handle seeing strays.

But I see more strays than anyone I know.  I don't get it.  And there's this stray pit bull dog (probably just under a year old) that's been roaming around the entrance of my neighborhood.  Today I tried getting the dog to come to me and at least give it some food, but she bolted.  I have no idea if it's a she, but I feel like it's a she.

She is hanging around this one house across the street from my neighborhood, so I don't know if she belongs to them and they let her run free.  If so, shame on them!  The street in front of my neighborhood is busy and people fly down it!  Or, I don't know if people see a pit and stay away, thinking it's going to be dangerous (but that burns me up, too, so don't get me started on that topic).

My point...I feel like most people see a stray dog and think, oh, how sad.  Or, oh, hope it doesn't come near me.  Or they don't even register it.  That's not me.  I see them and I don't forget them.  I can't stop thinking about them.  I can't stop thinking about how I could help or berating myself for not trying harder to rescue them.  There have been several times I have been driving on an interstate going 80+ mph and I come across a stray dog.  Because of traffic, other cars, where the dogs are located, I cannot get to them.  And it breaks my heart and brings me to tears straight up sobbing.  Thank you, Mom, for that trait.

I truly do not know what I would do if I got this dog to come to me.  I could not in good conscience just let it go.  Because if I saw later that she got hit by a car?  I'd never, ever forgive myself.  But I'm going out of town this weekend, my parents are keeping my dogs with their two already so it's not like I could ask them to keep her, and there's no way I'd ever take a dog to the shelter.  I have no idea what I'd do.

So, needless to say, I've had a heavy heart for this dog for the past few days.  It's been a weird week anyway, and this doesn't help.

And that's all for today.