Garden/people/dog watching while walking...

I have to say when walking around the subdivision there is plenty to see.  I enjoy looking at other people's gardens seeing what they are doing, or in some cases NOT DOING!!!  I am always confused as too why people live in houses and do no gardening what so ever!! Why not live in a condo or apartment where you don't have a garden to look after?

One house I go past has grass that is knee high.  I saw the other day they had finally cut it, but what a mess.  You can tell the lawn mower was struggling and it chopped the grass all up.  Just looked like a bad haircut.

I tend to go walking first thing in the morning.  I try to beat the heat.  It seems we have rabbits galore around here.  Some are even verging on to being quite tame.  We have a number of woods around so plenty of birds.

There are a lot of dogs and their owners.  I am still wary of the smaller dogs, but have made friends with a number of the bigger dogs.  One huge boy is so friendly and was a rescue and couldn't be more friendlier if he tried.

There are a number of people who walk, but not as many as where we used to live.  On Thursday morning I was laughing to myself, as Thursday is garbage day.  It was Canada Day on Monday so garbage pick up is a day later this week; on Friday.  It was crazy how many people had put their garbage out.  I guess people just forgot this week? 

I walk two to three times around the subdivision, takes me around 50 to 55 minutes to walk three times around and I do around 6,500 steps.  I walk up a steep hill three times.  By the time I have done that three times I am pooped!!!

I am trying to walk 10,000 steps a day again!! 

Walter Henry.........

Was talking to a friend on Facebook about cats, as she posted a cute video of her black cat.  I am quite sure my other friend who is part of the cat team at our local Humane Society said black cats are harder to re-home.  Not sure why as I love black cats.  We had a black cat growing up called Moggs, she was an outdoor cat most of the time which was normal back in Britain in the 70's.  When dh and I got married we got a cat, but she ended up going to live at a neighbours when we had our son.  Again he was an outdoor cat that came home to eat.  We never had litter boxes for either of those cats.

Not sure if you are a long time reader of my blog but we had a short bout of ownership of a male cat called Walter Henry, which you can read about here.  Unbeknownst to us dh is really allergic to cats, and over the years I am getting to be the same.  So poor Walter Henry only lasted a couple of days in our old house, before we had to take him back to the shelter.

As I mentioned before my friend is part of the cat team at our local shelter.  It's called Alliston and District Humane Society they do such good work.  I have learned a lot about what they actually do and without all the volunteers there would be a lot of animals without homes.  My friend puts in long hours at the shelter doing various projects.  One of the things she's helped implement is the kitten adoption programme where for a fixed rate, you get to adopt a kitten and get follow up medical care, which includes a spay or neuter in the cost.  They are also active in trying to get local feral cat populations down, by capturing cats and spay or neutering them and releasing them.  Feral cats tend to be hard to domesticate, if they are friendly though they will re-home but more often than not they are released back into the feral colony.

My heart though is with dogs first.  We would love another dog, but we don't live in a dog friendly neighbourhood.  However there are lots of dogs where we live, but lots of whining going on about them.  We actually live in the little white yapping dog capital of the world, and 90% of those dogs just want to nip and bite your ankles.  Give me a large dog any day.  I had a Bernese Mountain dog come up to me the other day, plop itself down in front of me, right on my feet and sat there so I could rub her chin.  Funniest girl ever, thought she was a lap dog!!

Are you a pet owner?  Did you buy from a breeder or adopt from a Humane Society or Animal Shelter?

As Bob Barker from the Price is Right Show always said at the end of every show:

"Help control the pet population: have your pets spayed or neutered."

Missing Molly.....

Would you believe it is coming up to five years on October 13th that we lost our dear Molly?  There she is with that hedgehog of hers..........

Where we live is not particularly dog friendly.  We have new neighbours and they have a 12 year old lab called Hudson, he is the perfect gentleman and makes me miss Molly even more.

When we were on vacation in Williamsburg, we saw so many dogs and the majority were so well behaved.  Including this one called Nora, who was sitting on the "naughty bench," like our grand daughter has to do!!

This Nora was only a year or two old, I can't remember exactly.

When we were walking one morning we met a couple who were walking four Bernese Mountain Dogs, ages 4, 3, 2 and 4 months.  I wish I had taken a photo, as they were the cutest bunch albeit a big bunch!!

Is there going to be another dog in our future?  I do hope so, just not while we are living in this house.

I feel as though I am losing it this week......

Remember the Slipper Thief post from the other day?  If not click here.

I had another "incident" happen to me on Thursday.  I sent out the following email to the book club members as we all live on the same subdivision.

"Just when you think you have seen it all something else happens. I came home today and wasn't sure if the garbage men hadn't been to our house.  As I put my garbage out inside of my garbage bin, I had to lift the lid to see if they had been or not.  Imagine my surprise when I lifted the lid, to find two presents there of bagged dog poop.

Now as I seem to live in a permanent brain fog, I had to think about this for a few seconds, as to when I had gotten a dog.  I then realized we don't have a dog and someone had put them in there.

I am not mad or anything, more astonished that some person (s) would have the audacity to do this.  I should thank them though, as it made me think for a few seconds, and bring me out of my daze."

A knock came to the door a while later and it was my neighbour.  His wife is a member of the book club and he was the culprit.  I probably wouldn't have noticed the dog poop if he had put it inside of the bag in the bin, but he put it on the top.  

Their garbage is picked up first thing, and mine not until later in the morning.  This dog poop had been left in the bottom of his bin, so he knew ours hadn't been picked up and popped it into our bin.  They had the same situation in their last home and did the same things with their neighbours.

I felt bad "complaining" and her having sent her husband over, but at the same time I personally don't think it is a thing you should do.  I played up on the fact to them that I was more concerned I was losing it and had thought I had got a dog and forgotten about it.

The dog situation is a big bone of contention on this subdivison.  As it is mainly retired folk who live here; we have a lot of dogs, especially small white ones!!  For folk who don't have dogs, dogs peeing and pooping on your grass is not a good thing.  The majority of the people do pick up after there dogs, but some don't.

For the people with dogs, they don't see the harm in letting the dogs walk on your front grass and peeing.  We have no sidewalks/footpaths.  

After the winter melt, it seems there are a lot of "presents" all over the place.  So in the next newsletter this issue will be brought up AGAIN!!

I am waiting for the condo board to tell me to take down my no dog signs (see this post) as no signage is allowed.  So far they haven't sent anyone over.  It will be interesting to see which board member draws the short straw and has to have the discussion with me!!!

If I sound a bit cranky with this situation you are right, there are a number of little things that are annoying me.  I just hope I can get over it as I don't plan on moving any time soon, as I LOVE our house.

P.S. I love dogs, honestly I do.  I am still pining for our Molly, but this is not the right area for owning a dog........but what do I know?

P.P.S. Just read this post and had a good cry.