This morning I saw a dog in my back yard. My yard has one side that isn’t fenced so I figured it would just wander back out, which it did. Awhile later I went outside to spray my grass for weeds and didn’t see the dog so I thought her owner had brought her inside. While getting set up to spray the weeds my 10 year old son called to tell me he felt sick to his stomach and he needed to come home from school. Since we’ve been dealing with the stomach flu since Friday when my 12 year old daughter woke up sick and my husband and I spent an hour or so after midnight cleaning things up I thought I better get over there quick so I left to go get him.
On the way back home the dog was running loose in the middle of the street our circle is attached to. It seemed to be heading toward the even busier road near our entrance to the neighborhood. I didn’t want her to get hit so I thought I’d better help out. I dropped my son off at home and was going to go get her and realized that since I don’t currently have a dog I also don’t have a leash. I grabbed the only rope I could find and a cheese stick and went and caught her. The rope was only about 2 feet long so I tied her to the tree in my front yard and got her some water. Then I called the phone numbers on the tags and didn’t get an answer for either number. I knew I couldn’t keep her there with a 1 foot lead on the rope so I called my neighbor and she said I could put her in their backyard.
My neighbor was at work when I had called and nobody had been home earlier, but after going inside for a few minutes and coming back out I heard the neighbor kids screaming. They have a dog so I was surprised they’d be so unnerved by this little dog, especially since it was about an eighth the size of their dog. However, if I had a fenced back yard and came home to find a dog I didn’t think would be there in my yard I think I’d be confused and or upset too. I went over to tell them what was up and then the owner of the dog called me. He was very happy she’d been found and wasn’t sure how she’d gotten out again. He had talked with a neighbor closer to him to take the dog until his Mom could come over and get her back in her kennel. So I got the dog on the rope again and walked it down to meet his neighbor who thanked me a lot and took the dog.
By this time catching the very energetic dog and all the brisk walking around had me too tired to spray the yard. I knew I could push myself through it, but I realized that if I did that my fibromyalgia would likely have me so exhausted that I’d be out for a couple days and more likely to catch the stomach flu. So I stopped myself from continuing on with my initial plan and came inside.
It’s hard for me to not do what I want especially when I am so easily distracted. I am glad I helped the dog get back to her owner, and in the long run keeping her safe was much more important than me getting my lawn to look nicer. I think I’m just going to look at this experience as a really good practice on self care. I wanted to follow my plan of getting those weeds sprayed, but by stopping and resting I may be able to get it done tonight anyway and if not I’ll do it in the morning. They’ll still be there, the dog is safe and I didn’t over do it.