Is your house the place to visit?

[IceyBlueSibes]

So, just the other day got me thinking... how many of you have dogs that come to visit? Whether they are strays, or the neighborhood dog that escapes and likes to come hang out with your dogs.

We have had so many dogs come to visit us, it's just too funny.

A few days ago, we ended up with a Husky and Chihuahua (both from the same owner) visiting us. The husky, Oso, was 9 years old, and Rocky, the Chi, was a little younger. They stayed with us over night, and we finally got into contact with the owner later that day. She said she was afraid of dogs but she has two of her own, and the husky she's had since he was 9 weeks old. Ah well --

Ike was the number one visitor, until we finally asked the family if they wanted to surrender him to us. They had no qualms about it. We've also had a rat terrier, two beagles, a doxie/chow mix, a pug/beagle mix, and so many others.. We were able to locate all owners except for the RT. We unfortunately had bring him to the shelter, because he was becoming aggressive towards us. He wasn't fixed, and for some reason thought Sheiba and Denali were in heat (they're fixed).

So how many of you are the "house to visit" when dogs get out? LOL

[calgal]

In my small communtiy dogs are walked on leash, but about three Thanksgivings ago my son found a tiny 2 or 3 pound Yorkie wearing a diaper, walking in the road and it was raining. He brought her home and I found she was wearing a tag with her name and phone # which was in San Francisco where my son lives. I called, left a message and got busy taking care of her. She pooped in her diaper so she needed a bath, my husband bought her some newborn diapers, and I fed her a chicken dinner

[TinyAlbinoDancer]

Our house used to be (for dogs and cats), but I'm not as apt to run out and invite them in now because I'm paranoid about them bringing in illness or parasite. If they have an obvious collar and tag on I'm happy to go get them and call (or if I know where they live), but most dogs around here that get loose don't have either. I am ALWAYS looking for dogs when I'm driving, though, oddly enough. Saw one today, but no collar/tags, and I was on my way to babysit so I had to be there on time.

My dad's been having wars with stray cats hanging out at our house since this Summer. I laugh hard every time the current cat outsmarts him and escapes the trap (a have-a-heart) or takes the food without loosing the door. The cat's like, 4 up on dad now. lol We have to take the stray kitties to animal control if they fight with out kitties, and this one does unfortunately.

My family always joked when I was growing up that I put a sign out front that said, "stray pets welcome here" because we often had doggies and kitties hanging out (which is actually how we acquired our first dog and cat, and some subsequent pets!). I used to not tell my parents I was feeding them!! LOL It worked until we went on vacation or something and I had to leave a note asking the pet sitter to walk out to one of the sheds on our property to feed a cat that may not be friendly. Or until dad found the cat food, water and carrier with blankies in the garage. Hahaha! Good memories.

[Swiftwind]

We don't get any dogs visiting my house because there isn't a way for them to freely enter our property. When we had a cat, that was a different story. We had cats coming and going all the time, and some even came into our house!

Now that I think of it, we did have one maltese puppy who we found in our front garden, but the owner must have been a little careless or just lost the pup for a few minutes, because we found out it's owner only lived a few houses down.

[britishbandit]

We get 2 dogs "visit", a Pointer (just recently) and a Min Poodle. Both of these dogs seem to get "let out" to roam the streets, and can't say I'm happy about it. The dogs are great, but I don't like seeing them out and about without a leash or somebody watching them. I've said something to the Poodle owner, and it doesn't happen as often now, but I've yet to even see the owner of the Pointer, and have no idea where he lives. The pointer is also INTACT, which makes matters worse.

Stray cats seem to be the more common thing for me though, they keep ending up on my doorstep. I've been a halfway house for a few of them now.

[mulroony]

We just have a bunch of neighbor dogs, not many stray, but Jill and I have become stray hunters when we are out. When we were getting Kenzie we saw a dog on the side of the road that we would have picked up, but by the time we were able to turn around (darn 80mph Indiana speed limits) he was no where to be found. The other night Jill ran over to campus and was returning when she saw a big beautiful doberman out and about (strange considering it is not possible to own a doberman on campus you would never get away with it) while she was not going to get out and see if it was friendly (I would have been stupid enough her not so much), but she did follow it as long as she could in the car to make sure it was ok. We have a surprising low number of feral cats for being a college/rural town so we do not see many of them.

[IceyBlueSibes]

Most of the dogs that end up here have collars with ID's on. If they don't, then we don't let the dogs associate with them. I, too, am paranoid about the other dogs carrying an illness.

The dogs aren't allowed to roam, they just end up getting lose (it happens) and they come to our house. My guess is we have the most dogs (the friendliest atleast). A couple houses down on the other side has 4 dogs, a pitbull/lab X, a Weim/Mastiff X, a Bulldog, and a doxie that they just got for their daughter (who's only like 7 years old ). Their dogs bark at EVERYTHING and they end up coming out and screaming at them "SHUT UP! GET THE F*** INSIDE!"

Anywho... my brother jokes around with my mom that we need to just open up a shelter. LOL

We did have a couple cats come vist, one was a black and white male. He was SO pretty. He had a raindrop of black on his nose, I ended up calling him "Baby". We knocked on the owners door, and no one answereed and finally their neighbor said they had been gone for a while. So we took him in, and in a way, had to tame him. He was becoming very affectionate and he ended up getting lost for 2 days and came back all beat up He ended up having a broken jaw, and about an inch of his spine (at the base of his tail) was shattered. They don't think it was a car... they think someone had taken a baseball bat, or a broom and beat him. We had to have him PTS.

The other cat was black, and obviously much older. He was very sick and we kept food outside for him, but he couldn't eat. What had happened I guess is that he had a broken jaw and it healed to where he couldn't open his mouth. We called animal control, and they set up a trap. I cried watching him leave because he was meowing the entire time. We asked for them to update us on his progress, and that's when they told us about his jaw, and shortly after he passed away. Poor kitty..

[KennelMom]

Our neighbor's dog that was always loose used to come visit and lay in our driveway. Sadly, he was hit and killed by a car a month ago

I don't let stray dogs in our yard or mingle with our dogs. We usually have a couple dogs in the kennel being boarded and our pups love playing with them.

[Barrett]

We get the neighbor's dogs visiting our house constantly and I hate it! His dogs are mean and will sit in front of my sliding glass door and bark at me while I try to watch tv. My 3 dachshunds are frothing at the mouth trying to get through the glass at them. I have to go outside and slowly walk to the neighbor's house while his dogs bark and nip my heels the whole way to his house. I stand on his porch and knock on the door while the little dog pulls on my pantleg and the big dog barks in my ear. If he isn't home ( which is most of the time ) I put the little dog on the tie out line and I put the big dog in the garage and I walk home. The next day I have to do it all over again. I normally would never put up with this but my neighbor is very old and he lives alone. I know he loves his dogs, even if he doesn't keep them in his yard. We live on a dead end street so there is little chance his dogs will get hit by a car. I can never let my dogs out in the front yard incase those mean dogs are out there.

[Ritz459]

We used to have dogs coming over to our house all of the time. Our neighbor's two Malmautes lived at our house, only going home to eat. Then we got Blackie and Wiley, the male Mal, would fight with him 24/7, so the neighbor's chained him up in their yard. He died of heat stroke. Loupie, however, lived with us until she attacked another neighbor's dog and they complained. She then lived the next couple of months on a chain and shortly died. (She was old and had arthrites and was going blind...I wonder if they didn't just put her to sleep.)

We've also had a neighbor's Chow/Husky mix come over, until Blackie attacked him. Jewels, one of the puppies from a stray we picked up, would also come over to our house for a daily visit, until the owners moved. An old neighbor's Boxer, Gage, used to come over whenever he was let off of his chain.

We've had some random pain in the butt dogs come over too...mainly Cattle Dogs, a pair of Rotties, and Chow. They were attracted to our feild and then they tried to eat our dogs and attack us. They were just simply wonderful. *shakes head*
We also had a cat from the same owners that had Loupie and Wiley that used to come over all the time. Our cat hated it and they'd always fight, but she still kept coming over.

And how we got Rush and Rose was by their pregnant moms showing up at our house. Gotta love people who dump their pregnant animals.

[12weimgirl]

We have a pit bull that comes up when belles in heat and we also have a golden, rottie, english springer spaniel, border collie, and a yorkishire terrier that comes over every once in a while LOL we have a lot of dogs that come over most of them males LOL

[rmci]

I've been followed home by a stray pitbull while out walking Baxter. He ended up spending the night on my front porch, but then latched onto a family that walked by the next morning.

[Cassiepeia]

I'm fortunate to live in an area with very few roaming dogs and in my street we only have one that is a common sight around my house and that's my neighbours collie mix. She's a stunning dog and super friendly. Any other dogs are usually just out because their owners are in the front yard...mostly they're small dogs. Maltese & Mini foxies...they don't wander though and certainly don't end up in my yard.

Now if we're talking cats...well...then that's a different story.

Cass.