Strange Days

I’ve spoken about my neighbors in previous posts; they are a great couple Theresa and Tommy, with a gorgeous little 8 year old boy who comes to my house after school.  Although we’ve only known them for a few months, we’ve all become close, like family. When they went on vacation, we house sat for them, which implies a HUGE amount of trust…I guess we should be flattered, but quite honestly, if we left, I would have them do the same.

They have a lot of pets, they have three exotic birds, two guinea pigs, a hamster and a sweet black lab named Andy.

Theresa called me last night hysterically crying and told me that the people across the street shot Andy.

I was floored.  I mean, ok we live in what would be considered a rural area.  To our left is more of a suburban area, lots of houses with yards and white picket fences, to our right are Theresa and Tommy, and beyond them mostly farms and the paper company which is thousands of acres of forest.

On our side of the street, (T&T and us) there’s one other house Mr. & Mrs. J, a lovely couple who’s been here forever. All three of our houses are houses that have been here for years, were very nicely built, and have property with them. Across the street/road are a small trailer park, and two other trailers set separately and back off the road.

When we first came, an elderly lady around the corner had stopped by to welcome us and told us “don’t mess with those people” as she pointed to the trailer park “they nothing but trouble”. It was funny, but I did take it with a grain of salt because I don’t believe in pigeonholing people. I don’t think that just because someone lives in a trailer or in the projects that they are bad or that they are “trouble”.

Hey, I left home when I was 15, I’ve been homeless, I’ve lived on the street, in shelters, in the projects, then finally into my own apt when I was 17, and what a piece of shit it was. Now I live in a huge 13 room house on 3 acres of land. It was a long road here, trust me.

Problem is, every problem this neighborhood has had since we moved here has come from that trailer park. Though, I’m quite sure that not every person in there is bad, there are definitely some people there that have some serious issues.

Which brings me back to Andy.  Andy is a lab mix, he’s 9 years old and is a certified therapy dog, which just means that he is certified safe to work with children or disabled people….which further means that he has a very docile personality, and is “safe” at all times around people.  

The people across the street from Theresa, have a small trailer, and at any time of the day or night you can here them shooting off their guns, I once saw the guy light a huge bonfire right underneath a pine tree, driving their pickup in and out the driveway and revving down the street all times of the day or night and general “partying” on the weekends.  Which all in all, I ignore, one – because I don’t sit out in front of my house, we mostly sit in the back yard, (until we decide on what furniture we want for the porch at least) and two, I believe in live and let live, we don’t bother them, they don’t bother us….even more so because they are right across the road from Theresa, not us, so I probably notice them less than she does.

At any rate I digressed again, Teresa has an electronic gate, her property is completely gated, (we don’t have a gate across our driveway yet), but even though they have a gate, they still always kept Andy close to the house and only let him out when they were out or if we were all by the pool.  I’ve been around that dog many many days and have never seen him act other than docile.

Yesterday, someone left the gate open and also let Andy slip out of the house and he walked out the yard and across the street. Those people claimed that the dog attacked them, which in itself is crazy…..but even assuming that since they didn’t know the dog they were scared, shoot in the air!

I saw Andy’s body; the dog was shot in the spine on the upper part of his back. He was shot while he was running away. Most likely scared, and trying to come home.  The cops were called, and they filed a report but since nothing can be proved, nothing can be done.

After the cops left, we walked to the fence and could hear them laughing and talking…one of the women made a loud noise like a shotgun and fell into peals of laughter.   They told the cops that they were attacked, but less than an hour later they are laughing and yucking it up?  No apologies, no explanation, they never even came to tell anyone what happened, they dragged the dog into the ditch (so they said, we believe they shot him as he was crossing the ditch to come home) and left him there and went about their business.

I really don’t know what to say, Jessica was horrified and sobbed for hours, Theresa and even Tommy were sobbing, her sisters were there…we went over and stayed with them for a couple of hours for support, then the guys went in the woods and buried him.

Joey slept thru the whole thing, and we discussed it and felt it was best to tell him the dog passed in his sleep so as not to upset him too much, or make him scared…either of the people across the street (though I think he has every right to be scared) or scared of getting on the bus in the morning.

It’s crazy, in the city, I had to worry about people getting shot and killed, here it’s a dog….but it doesn’t bother me less. I loved Andy, he was a big black furry baby….he was wary of the pool, if you were in the pool he wouldn’t come anywhere near you. He loved to eat, and loved to be pet and rubbed, he would look up at you with those hazel eyes and you could just see the intelligence and personality in those eyes.  He had just been diagnosed with hip displasia (sp) and was walking a little stiff (further evidence that he was unable to “attack” someone, he couldn’t jump up on his hind legs) and was given shots by the vet. They gave him another 3 years tops before the pain would be too much and he would probably have to be put to sleep.

Well, Andy Pandy (our nickname for him) was taken before his time….and maybe it would have saved him a lot of pain, but damnit, no one deserved to take that choice from him or his family.