TribTown

Although we formally met a couple of nights ago, after my roommate almost ran her over on CY Ave., we became even better acquainted this morning, when I almost plowed into her myself.

I tried to take her home (yes, I left my car in the middle of the street), because she was friendly and came right over to me. Clearly, she was out looking for some human companionship, and when I opened my car door, she found it -- with me.

From speaking briefly with a child in the neighborhood, she apparently was hit by a car once during one of her adventures, but somehow managed to jump onto the car's hood. She wasn't injured.

But here's the thing -- this dog shouldn't be out and about in the middle of the day, when no one was home. She was left in the back yard, but the fence to keep her in the yard was so short, I easily lifted her over it to set her back in the yard again.

 I seriously considered putting her in our yard for the day, so she wouldn't be able to escape again, but realized that if Dan came home and found a random dog in the yard, he may be a bit upset with me.

I left Nellie with her companion dog in the yard, knowing full well she wouldn't have any trouble escaping again.

I just hope her owner knows she's going to have to build a bigger fence -- much bigger -- to keep a spirited pup like Nellie from running free.

While it sounds like some sort of doggy torture-chamber, it's actually a packet of 50 dog-themed postcards.

The point of purchasing these postcards was to make me happy while in my cubicle -- I planned to hang a different one each day. After all, I love just about every kind of dog, each in its own way.

This brings me to my dillemma. My big problem with getting a dog -- other than the husband and roommate that won't let it happen -- is that I can't decide what kind is the best for me.

I grew up with labs, so I know I love their energy. But what if I don't live somewhere with a huge yard? Labs can be serious chewers when they're bored.

Jake's parents have a tiny rat terrier named Gracie, who is simply adorable. She easily travels, gives kisses, and remains a puppy forever. She may be a little shy for my taste, though, and I think I'm more of a big dog kind of gal.

I sit for a dog named Taz who's a beautiful blue healer. She's so adorable, and loving, and calm when you want her to be. She's a good size, with perky ears and wonderful markings. I adore her. But what if all blue healers aren't like her?

 The Dog Box is full of pugs, daschunds, shelties, corgies, greyhounds, sheep dogs, dalmations, mastiffs, collies, goldens, mixes and mutts of all shapes and sizes.

How's a girl to choose?

In dog years, she was 147 when she died this week of "natural causes" (otherwise known as being older than dirt).

The 21-year-old Long Island pooch -- a wire-haired daschund, and adorable to be sure -- was six weeks old when her owner first got her. I feel sad for the owner, because as long as her dog was alive, she lived with her longer than most children live with their parents. 

Best of all: she lived all over the world, including Germany. And her favorite food was butter, which she stole from countertops and tables. This, of course, leads me to picture her as the "Coffee Talk" lady from SNL, saying in her oh-so-Jersey accent, "It's like buttah." 

Oh, and tell the person in charge of dog heaven that I'm in need of a puppy, so if he or she knows one ...

It's my new obsession, and i'm not letting it go until the husband agrees to at least try it.

In true wife style, I've decided to create a 'pros and cons' list, if not only to prove my point, then to show that I'm far more organized than my stubborn husband gives me credit for. Here goes:

PROS:

• I love dogs.
• Me + dog = happy. Fostering would enable me to have a dog, if only for a short while.
•  The Transitive Property. I love dogs. And Dan loves me. The transitive property of mathematics says that if I love dogs and Dan loves me, Dan should love dogs. You can't argue with math.
• No cost. The shelter pays medical and food bills.
• No permanent commitment. Get a dog you can't handle? Another foster family that's better equipped will take over the responsibility. No harm, no foul.
• Our schedules. We all work at different times, so at any given time during the day, one of us is probably home. At most, the dog would be alone for about 5 hours. Not bad.
• Our landlord. He might agree to it. We've proven that we're responsible, and he said before we moved in that we could have a dog.
• I love dogs. Did I mention that already?

• Dan's not a huge fan of dogs. I contend that he's never lived with a dog, and his feelings on this could change. (See: Transitive Property, above.)
• Kitties beware. We're not sure how the cats will react to a dog. However, this could be seen as a PRO, as fostering would give us the opportunity to see how the cats would react without having made a permanent commitment.
• Our landlord. I'm just guessing that he might agree to the idea. He also might not. Which would be a problem, since we'd be bringing the dog into what is technically his house.
• Giving it back. I might not be great at this, and what began as a foster dog could end as a permanent dog. We'll see.

Yeah, I'm five feet tall, and yeah, I was a varsity hurdler in high school. So what? But they think it's funny.

Maybe that's why little Remy LaBeau English and I get along so well. Even though he's afraid of almost everyone and everything, the two of us were able to chill quite well together, along with Remy's sibling animals (two cats and his sister, Jenny).

Remy is a Yorkie. But he's not tiny like your average Yorkie. He looks almost comically tiny compared to his sister and, especially, compared to the cats, who could easily crush him just by sitting on him.

Still, he's a feisty little guy. When I was pet-sitting over at the English household last week, he fought the cats for my attention, squeakily squawking at them whenever they came too near my just-for-him hands.

He came with directions, too: Feed him alone or his sister will gobble up all his food. Let him sleep in the bed as a treat. (I let him, as well as all the other animals, sleep in the bed the entire time I was there. But, ya know... I sort of followed the directions.)

Little Remy may be an odd little guy, padding across the floor on his oh-so-tiny little paws, far smaller than the smallest stuffed animals -- but at a robust four pounds, he knows he's capable of doing anything he wants.

Yeah, those stairs may look to him like a mountain, but he'll climb them if a cuddly lap is waiting at the top.

And yeah, those hurdles may have been chest-high for me, but I jumped them just as well, because I wanted to and I knew I could.

So, Tiniest Hurdler, am I? The tiniest dog and I will do just fine, thank you. Remy LaBeau will act as my inspiration to become the tiniest whatever-I-want-to-be. So there.

Sure, my brain would have eventually melted into a fuzzy pile of puppy-centric dog chow. And yes, I would have fully wasted the college degree for which my mom and I worked so hard to pay.

On Friday, at about 6 p.m., I received a call that reminded me: Meg, you should probably still be a dog-walker. This kind of stuff doesn't happen to dog walkers.

The call was a request for an answer from the "Answer Girl," as I've been dubbed around town. (Side note: When I was a dog walker, all clients knew my name. They called me Meg. They still call me Meg. Here, people just say, 'Is this the Answer Girl?')

The question was... awesome and not, all at once, and came from a grown man who sounded like he was perhaps in his 40s. This is how our conversation went:

Him: Is this the Answer Girl?

Me: Um, yes. This is MEGAN.

Him: Yeah, I have a question. You can answer any question, right?

Me: Sure. At least, I can try.

Him: OK, I'm wondering if you can get infections from sex toys. Like, I have a [insert inappropriate sex toy name here], and I'm wondering if it can give me diseases and stuff.

Me: Stunned silence.

Him: I mean, I heard you could get sick if you didn't clean them...

Me: Um. Uh. Yeah. Yeah, I believe you can get bacterial infections.

Him: Yeah, that's what I was wondering.

Me: OK. ... You know I can't print that question in the column, right?

Him: Yeah, I know. I was just curious and I saw your face in the paper and thought you'd be the person to call.

Me: Uh, thank you?

Him: You have a real nice day now.

Click.

Sigh. I should've stayed a dog walker.

And boy, do they need help. Tons of cats in the Casper area are looking for homes, so if you think you can help one, do it!

Drew is quiet but friendly, with eyes that penetrate directly into the soul. He loves to be held by anyone who's around. He was abandoned.

Sallie, too, was left to fend for herself. She just wants to be loved, which she voices loudly whenever people walk into her room.

Dumped on the side of the road and brought in by strangers, Silver's cerulean gaze melts the heart.

And then there's Pepper, far larger than a normal cat, with a personality sized to match.

About 150 cats and kittens, some with stories of abandonment, others whose families couldn't take them with during a move, and still others who never had a home, live in the Casper Humane Society.

Gathered in five rooms (categorized by age and sex), they play with donated toys, sleep in donated cubbies, and wait for their future family members to walk through the door.

June is National Adopt a Shelter Cat Month. And Casper Humane Society has plenty of cats and kittens up for grabs.

Of the 150 cats available, about 15 are adopted out each month. But the ratio of outgoing felines can't make up for the number of incoming cats.

"I've never seen this many. It's just exploded," said Sally Reinhart, Humane Society board president. "It started about two months ago, and just overnight we were full. We do our best to try to make room for all we can. But we're almost to the saturation point."

The adult male room is largest, with the most cats available for adoption. Humane Society associate director Kris Bachert said some people fear adopting adult males because they've heard horror stories about spraying.

"I think people tend to get that phobia with males, which isn't the case when they get fixed," Bachert said. "They're less like to spray, fight, run away... That all goes away when they're fixed."

But it's the kitten room -- filled to the brim with nearly 65 kittens -- that makes shelter staff worry about the future.

"We want to make sure people know, please fix your pets," Bachert said. "It's absolutely an epidemic. People can be a part of the solution. Each person who prevents one litter, that'll make a huge difference."

Cat Statistics

* Average number of litters a fertile cat can produce in one year: 3

* Average number of kittens in a feline litter: 4 - 6

* Number of cats one female cat and her offspring could produce in seven years: 420,000

* Number of cats and dogs entering shelters each year: 6 - 8 million

* Number of cats and dogs adopted from shelters each year: 3 -4 million

How you can help

Think you can provide a good home for an animal in need? Visit the Humane Society at 849 E. E St. in Casper or call 265-5439 for other volunteer opportunities.

Need a low-cost spay or neuter?

Get an application for a free or low-cost spay or neuter by stopping by the Humane Society, or by visiting the Central Wyoming Spay & Neuter Foundation Web site at www.cwsnf.org.