Somewhere in the hood, there's a GOOD neighbor.

First, a little background.

We have three dogs. Boomer is the wandering yellow Lab. Rylee is our female Jack Russells Terrier. Bandit is our male Jack Russells Terrier. All three will stay by the house if we are out with them. If we step inside for a minute, they go wandering. Fortunately (or UNfortunately, as is sometimes the case) they always come back.

We also have three cats. Well, two are ours. Kiko and Spaz. Alex, cat number three, actually belongs to our neighbor Pam, but he's living with us while she's in Arizona. Kiko is 14 years old, petite (weighs MAYBE three pounds), frail and loud-mouthed. Spaz is 5 years old, taller and heavier than our Jack Russells (about 17 pounds). All three cats are indoor/outdoor cats.

Spaz can open doors.

Now for the story - This morning when I left for work, I left the dogs in the house. I closed all the bedroom doors (since one of them likes to punish me by chewing on my shoes), made sure they had water, put the Spaz and Alex outside, and left for work.

In my 'hood, the guy across the street is 89 years old, putters, restores old metal farm equipment, and hang out pretty much all day. Next to him, is a retired couple. To the north of our property, is another retired couple. Because of this, we rarely lock our front door. VERY RARELY!! We don't need to. Our neighbors watch our house and usually report to us what color the cars were that stopped by. (The green jeep that my brother drives for example)

Sometime before 1:45 pm, Spaz opened the door. The dogs got out. Naturally, they left the door open. They haven't mastered the art of closing it behind them. On their wandering adventure, Bandit found a nice fresh pile of cow poop, which he proceeded to smear and slather all over both sides of his body, from his neck to his hips.

When Kali (my daughter) came home after school. The dogs and the cats were all in the house....with the door closed. Kali called to ask why the poop-covered dog was in the house. I said, "Huh?" A quick search of the house revealed no piles or smears INSIDE the house....anywhere. So it's my assumption is that the cat let the dogs out, one of our neighbors found them and wrangled them back into the house, then closed the door. Pam would have called me at work.

It's nice to have GOOD neighbors in the 'hood!