This morning was another uneventful day at the farm... almost.
It seems we have a new farm resident. He has been uncerimoniously named "White Chocolate" for reasons unknown to me, and I've been taking to calling him "Buddy". He seems to be a lab-husky or lab-chow mix, and he is a nice dog, for the most part. He likes to get into things, and he chases cars, and farm equipment. Not a good thing, especially since we're in the middle of hay season. The hay tedder especially can cause any living creature to truly know the meaning of pain, and I'm afraid that he won't survive the summer.
Plus, Buddy is a male dog, probably not neutered, so he'll be running around peeing all over everything. Added to the fact that we have 3 female dogs. Great. Just great.
I can just imagine the little child saying,
"Oh mommy mommy, look at the puppy! Isn't he so cute?! Can't we have him. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?"
And mommy mommy just gets the cute little puppy, never mind the fact that she can't afford to take care of it.
And so, when the cute little puppy isn't cute anymore and he isn't little anymore and he isn't a puppy any more, he's a big drooling sappy dog that likes to chase cars. PLUS, little Billy or Bobby or Sue or whoever wanted the stupid thing in the first place doesn't like him anymore, and mommy mommy can't afford to feed him. So the first thing, around here, anyway, that comes to mommy mommy's mind is this:
"I can't take it to the pound, that'll cost me money. I know what I'll do! I'll drop it off at a farm somewhere. They'll take care of it."
It's this kind of throw away attitude that makes some farmers so irritated with people from town or the city. They honestly have no clue as to what a farm is, how it runs, and what happens at it. For instance, we have to move pieces of equipment around to take care of fields that cost more than a nice HOME!
Excuse me ma'am, that combine there is worth more than all your cars and your double-wide, so if you don't mind, would you kindly move off to the side of the road while we move by?
It amazes me that people can be so stupid. They just don't get it. Especially out on the roads, they'll fly right by us and do all sorts of stupid things. And then, they leave dogs, cats and any other assorted amount of pets out by our barns and houses, hoping that they won't have to deal with them ever again. They pass their problem on to us.
Well, excuse me for not being totally hospitable, but we don't need your problems! We've got our own! And, they aren't dog and cat expensive type problems. They're livelyhood problems. If your dumb mutt you dropped off gets caught up in a piece of equipment, that's a day we loose because we have to fix it. And a day lost can mean the difference in thousands of dollars.
So don't, ever, and I mean ever, drop off that dog at that farm down the way. We don't want it any more than you do, and it hanging around can mean a lot more than a few dollars in kibble.
Peace,
Beebes