The saga of the dog a door down

Sometime in December or January my next-door neighbors got a dog.

Allow me to say that this is possibly the cutest dog I have ever seen. Thanks to a self-absorbed horror of a Doberman who followed hard and badly on the heels of my childhood's Perfect Dog, I thought I hated the species. This adorable youngster made me realize otherwise. We fell completely in love, through the fence -- like Pyramus and Thisbe.

His name, I learned from the neighbors, is Duke -- a dumb name, but you can't have everything. (I'd have named him Brutus.) Duke is a Chow-German shepherd mix, with a shepherd's build and short coarse coat, a chow's head and black tongue, a shepherd's patterning on the head, and a chow's reddish coloring. His large triangular ears stand perkily alert and his head, usually cocked to the side, and intelligent fun-filled eyes give him a rascally look.

At first I was cautious about him -- he barks ferociously at every passerby through the chain-link fence that holds him in his dirt yard -- but one day as I shut the door of my car in the driveway (which I share with Duke's owners) I noticed his tail waving. So I approached him, and he jumped eagerly to brace his front paws on the fence, and we introduced ourselves.

After that we established a routine -- I go over to pet him and say hi every time I come home. Then I started taking him for an occasional walk, which brought him massive amounts of joy, and brought me massive amounts of muscle aches the next day because he's so young and eager and pulls so hard on the leash. (He's only ten months old. Just a puppy.) And eventually he was happier to see me than he was to see his owners. We arrived home from work at the same time one day, and both approached the fence...and Duke came dashing over to me. I was a little embarrassed, a little happy.

But all these months I've been troubled by the way he's kept. Obviously he's not ill-treated in any emotional way -- he's the happiest, most outgoing, loving dog on the planet. But through the harsh days of South Bend's winter, snow, ice, and wind; and through the hot days of early spring; and through the past two weeks of frigid rain, he's always outside. And he has no shelter. The neighbors put him outside and leave all day for work, while Duke sits huddled miserably as close to the house as he can get. He has no doghouse, no access to the garage. And when the weather got legitimately hot a few weeks ago, he had no water. His food is usually dumped on the ground. His only toys are sections of a chewed-up garden hose.

I've been struggling internally with the right course of action for a long time. When I began taking an active interest in the dog, such as walking him, I noticed that he stopped being left outside all night, like he used to. But even so, he's outside from 8-12 hours every day, with no way of getting out of the weather. I asked around and learned that it's the law to provide your dog with a shelter raised off the ground if it spends the majority of its time outside. I bought a bucket and filled it with water to put inside the yard for him (and all the while he drank -- thirstily -- he watched me and waved his tail), hoping the neighbors would take the hint, but instead they took away the bucket.

This week was the last straw. The weather has been in the upper thirties and lower forties, and pouring down rain for the past four days. And through it all this poor dog has been sitting outside. It made me mad. So I called Animal Control to report it.

I didn't term the case anything at all; I just said to the woman who answered the phone that I needed to talk to someone about my neighbors' dog, who spent most of his time outdoors in all weather without shelter or water. She said, "You need to give us the address, ma'am: That's a neglect case, and a priority call." So I complied and requested to be kept informed: "If he winds up being taken away, I'd like to help find a good home for him. I'm really attached to this dog." She took my number and said she'd do what she could; it wasn't standard procedure. She also said they'd send someone out right away.

And they did. About an hour later I saw the Animal Control van parked outside the house. No one was home, but Duke was in the yard as described, and as I left to go grocery shopping (yes, I finally did that, too), I saw an official-looking paper stuck in their door.

So they've got their warning informing them of what legally they're required to do. I assume they'll have an eye kept on them.

I don't want them to take the dog away. I want him to be treated well, and I want to keep taking him for walks. If I could take this dog myself, I certainly would. But if it takes him getting a new and better home, that's fine.

I don't particularly like the sensation of ratting on my neighbors -- that's why I've been silent so long -- but I can't stand seeing him cold and miserable and huddled in a little ball when it's cold and wet, or collapsed in the shade panting without a drink when it's hot. So I did something about it. And maybe now things will change a bit for him. I notice that he's not outside at all this cold wet afternoon.