I have a story for you. My puppy is called Titanium Tinkle Berry. He
is about a year old now but when I met him, he looked like this:
He was about 4 months old in these photos. Here is the story:
I
couldn't take it. That whimpering sound. Where was it coming from? Every night and in the early morning, I would hear this sound. Especially around 2 am when I would take my other dog, Diamante, out for her midnight tinkle. Finally I saw him. He was small. He was curled up in a ball most of the time. He stayed close to the bushes. It was a dog, a puppy. He was an ugly dog. He was skinny and scared. He never looked up. I started to watch him day after day. He was left out in the hot sun with no shade and no water. He was left out in the rain and during down
pours. Each time I looked there was no food or water. He had no shelter. It broke my heart. Where was his masters? Who was taken care of him? Why was he left to suffer?
As it turns out the puppy belonged to the new neighbors. A tall, black, heavy-set American-Islander. He had dread locks and was married to and American-white woman. They seems like a happy enough couple. I am am only 5'4", 125lbs. I didn't want to talk to him alone so I told my husband. Immediately, he went to the other yard to check on
the puppy. He reported what he saw. Then he started throwing him hot dogs and giving him water. The puppy gobbled up the hotdogs so fast he chocked at first. He tossed the water bowl over every time. We didn't approach him. We were also scared. We didn't know the neighbors and didn't want to cause any problems. However there was a problem here, a big problem. So how do I love my neighbor who is clearly abusing this dog?
So I
decided to buy it a dog. A dog house would provide it shade and protection. It would be a gift to the people that lived there so there wouldn't be any animosity between neighbors. After all, maybe the people wanted the dog. Maybe they came from another country. In other countries, the dogs are not as renowned as the dogs in America. My family is from Honduras. There the dogs are just as skinny. They live outside and eat rodents or scraps. I wanted to give my neighbor the benefit of the doubt. My husband and I looked online for dog houses. They were a little out of my price range. So my husband offered to build it a do house instead. he said it would be cheaper. On the heels of that endeavor, there was another down pour. I cried. The next day the
owner of the puppy let him loose to run around. I was out walking Diamonte. Another neighbor caught the puppy and fed it oatmeal. When she saw me she expressed her saddest about the dog. She couldn't keep it herself and wanted to know what I thought. We talked and when she was ready to
go inside she didn't know what to do with the dog, So I took it back to
it's owner.
I told him that it was dangerous to let the dog roam like
this because there is another dog that attacks all the dogs on the block. He said he knew that is
how the puppy got the gash on his head. Then I said well, I need another dog
for Diamante. I explained how Diamonte grow up with another dog that had died recently. I also said that she had gained some weight and need a friend to help her lose it. Then I pointed out that the puppy needed to gain weight and so you can see how theses dogs can help each other. My neighbor hemmed and hawed. Then I said I
will give you $50. That was the amount of money that I was going to spend on the dog house. Sold. My neighbor gave me the puppy. He didn't have a name. The neighbor called
him pipsqueak. So I named him Titanium Tinkle berry. He's a Rhodesian Ridge back mix and it turns out he is worth $1200- $1500. He looks like this now:
