Just Another Day in Paradise

Be forewarned. This is an angry tale of personal woe. Nothing even vaguely related to publishing or writing.

As I've mentioned lots of times before, I live in a heavily wooded, hilly area of north Texas. The houses sit at all different elevations. I have neighbors who have to drive fifty feet straight up a driveway at a forty-five degree angle to reach their houses, and I have neighbors whose roof lines are even with the road because their houses sit in a hollow.

Most of us are comfortable with the wild look of our neigborhood. There are trees and vines and wild figs everywhere. A truly manicured look would require cutting down lots of very old trees, and there's an unspoken agreement not to do this. Hell, just keeping up with the dead trees is a big enough job for me. I have Jaguar Tree Service on retainer to come out every winter to handle the bigger dead trees (between two and three a year). I cut the smaller ones down myself.

This is definitely Texas. We all have pets, and we're pretty tolerant of each other's animals. It's fairly common for dogs to escape yards while giving chase to rabbits, possum or squirrels. No one really minds. No one EVER calls Animal Control. It's just not done.

That is, with one exception: my neighbor across the street to the west. He has two large lots completely fenced in. You have to ring a bell at the gate to be admitted to his property. He does not socialize, and he keeps four large dogs. Two pit bulls, a German shepherd and an especially nasty chow. His pit bulls are constantly escaping the yard and terrorizing the neighborhood. Almost everyone has either phoned him to complain or reported him to Animal Control. Two years ago, he was forced to get rid of two pit bulls. He waited a while and then bought two more. The new dogs have recently started getting out, too.

Since my border collie's death last year, I only have two cats: Tribble the Paperweight and Bob the Hunter. When the days are nice, they spend a lot of time outside. Last night, both of them were on my front porch, lolling on the glider. I know because I could see them from my study which overlooks the front porch.

You know where this is going. About 8:00 PM, all hell broke loose on my porch--barking, hissing and screaming. Bob flew up a tree and Tribble backed into a corner growling and slashing at the damn dogs who were closing in on her, snapping angrily.

I know it's stupid, but I didn't stop to think. I began screaming at the dogs and kicking at them. They were so surprised, they froze. I took advantage of the moment to snatch Tribble up. I held her over my head and started back past the dogs to the door.

Of course, the dogs quickly recovered. One ran off while the male pit bull began leaping for the cat. Tribble responded by sinking her fangs into MY forearm. Ungrateful little sod.

I had to push on the dog to keep him from following into my house. Tribble took off for the bedroom, and I immediately went out again to find my neighbor. He was already outside (probably heard all the screaming and barking) and came to collect the male pit bull still on my porch. I heard him beating the poor creature all the way home. I could hear the dog's snarls and yelps for another five minutes after that. Great. Now we'll have VICIOUS pit bulls terrorizing the neighborhood.

I had to go to the Care Now clinic for the puncture wounds. They took me right away, gave me Augmentin and told me to come back in two days to make sure my arm is not swelling. Charming. My blood pressure, which is usually my best subject, was so high they made me stay there until it came down again.

This is so wrong. Tribble now has a criminal record. I had to fill out an Animal Control report on her and was told to expect a follow-up call from the County. Between the clinic and the pharmacy, I had to fork over almost $200 for my freaking puncture wounds. I'm still trying to decide whether to write a demand letter to my neighbor or not. I'd hate to have bad feelings with a neighbor. Of course, right now, the bad feelings are all one-sided. I'm the angry one.

My arm aches, I'm ticked off and, underneath it all, I keep hearing that poor stupid pit bull screaming while being beat. This isn't the way things should be.