My husband and I live a quiet life and try not to be nosy neighbors. However, as our house was built on a sort of knoll, if we looked out windows on our second story there were a couple of houses on the next block that we could see into their backyards.
On one of the rare occasions in Southern California, we were having a rainy spell. I was working in my home office and kept hearing this noise. I looked out to see what it was and saw a little black and white Shih Tzu dog playing with the only thing he had to play with - his food bowl. He was picking up in his mouth, throwing it up and when it landed he would repeat this process. I thought how sad that he only had a metal bowl to play with. I had previously seen him jumping up and down at the back door trying to get them to let him inside. I went back to work subconsciously listening for the sound of the metal food bowl. When my husband came home from his days work, I told him what I had seen and we went over to my window and looked out again. The little black dog was now laying in a puddle of rainwater trying to keep warm. This broke our hearts. After a discussion, we knew what we wanted to do.
The next day, my husband went around to our neighbor and asked if they had thought about getting rid of their dog, and if so, we wanted to adopt him. He was told that 'yes, they had been thinking of taking him to the humane society because they had a small child and the dog jumped up on him'.
My husband and I were going on vacation that next week, but he told her that we would take him when we returned in a week. Upon our return, we brought him into our family with the two other small dogs, and Oreo immediately became a beloved member of our family and lived a spoiled life with lots of toys to play with and a warm home to live and sleep in. He was blessed with a long life with as a full member of our family.
HUNTINGTON BEACH, CA
