Dear editor:
This morning (Sept. 25) around 6:15 a.m., my husband put our chihuahua outside in the chain link pen with our two other dogs. We have been having a difficult time housebreaking her and I have recently had surgery, so it was an effort on his part to keep me from having to stoop over to clean up her "accidents."
I woke up later than usual, but my first order of business is to check on Bubbles and see what kind of mess she's left for me. She was not in her room (the laundry room), so I assumed she had been taken outside. We live in the county, off Highway 290, so one would just figure that inside a fence in our yard, our 10-month-old puppy would be safe.
However, for the second time in five years, one of my dogs mysteriously vanished from my yard. I have had three surgically sterilized cats disappear from my yard this year and one last year, too. I am not aware of any predators in this area large enough to consume the entire person, fur and all, of a domestic cat and we have scoured the woods looking for remains.
Bubbles was a precious, tiny little chihuahua that was terrified of strangers. She cowered when she was loose in the yard, but she was fine when in the pen with the other two dogs. She would not wander off on her own, as evidenced by the fact that when she let herself out before, she came to the porch straight away and sat there until someone found her and let her in. I firmly believe my puppy was stolen out of my yard. We have had her since she was weaned from her mother and our entire family is quite attached to her. What kind of monster steals someone else's pet?
Some years back, we experienced the complete and utter horror of some foul beast of a human (neighbor) shooting our little poodle-terrier mix, Muffin. We found her under our shed, where she had dragged herself, with a hole in her gut from a rifle. There is one way in this place and one way out. I know this was not a stranger who lost their way and happened upon Bubbles and took her, because we generally do not get a lot of strange traffic down here.
We are going to invest $3,500 in a privacy fence now. I've lived in this house for 11 years in November and I have lost Muffin, Toto, Oscar, Poofie, Nina, BabyKitty, our precious MaoMao (just last week), and now our sweet little Bubbles. I just wanted to let people know that I love my animals and I hope someone reads this and recognizes that someone in their life has a little chihuahua that answers to the name "Bubbles" and will have the conscience to call me so I can get my baby back.
Shannon Davis Lawson
501-262-0101 (home)
501-318-4638 (cell)
Hot Springs
Editorial on 09/30/2015