STRAY DOGS!

The weather was beautiful this weekend, so we hung out at the park on Sunday morning. On our way home, I noticed a black, furry streak up ahead. At first, we thought it was a cat, which isn’t something that out of the ordinary to see roaming the streets of Jersey City. But then we realized it was a dog!

There in front of us was a pack of three of the mangiest, scraggliest looking dogs I have ever seen. One of them was actually cute, a smaller dog that just needed a bit of a haircut. Here was the second one, who reminded me of the dog that became a footrest in Beauty and the Beast:



The third one was the really weird looking one. It was a little dog but had pretty long skinny legs for a small dog. It had black fur, real short on its legs, but on its body the hair was crazy and out of control. Every time that dog walked towards me I got the chills. That thing gave me the creeps big time.

So we kept walking home after determining that these dogs weren’t wearing collars and didn’t belong to anyone. Everything would have ended there. Except they began to follow us. And Becca Palmese encouraged the following by continually snapping her fingers and talking to them, despite my telling her to QUIT IT! So as we walked the remaining 6 blocks to our house, we had 3 of the grossest looking dogs in tow. They would run up ahead of us and into streets, but always would barrel back towards us again.



I started worrying “What is going to happen when we get home!” These dumpster dogs can’t come into our house. I told Becca to stop talking to them. This made her talk to them more. And laugh uncontrollably. When we got back to the apartment, we rushed inside. Except Becca did not rush inside. So I closed and locked the door and told her to get rid of the dogs and then she could come in.

But the dogs were not leaving now. They stood on our stoop with Becca, waiting to be let in. Finally, a nice couple walked by and started petting the dogs. Becca informed the couple that they were strays. Then this really turned into an adventure.

One hour, several phone calls to animal control and Jersey City Police Dispatch, and 7 neighbors pitching in later, we had secured the dogs in a kind woman’s backyard. Animal Control in Jersey City is not open on the weekends, so she was going to keep the scraggly dogs in her yard until today.

Nothing like dumpster dogs to really bring a neighborhood together.