Killing cats and dogs

 I was planning to write an update on here but this has been on my heart so I'm going to get this done first. 

In the past I know I've mentioned to people that we get stray dogs and cats on the ranch a few times a year. Idiots will abandon their animals thinking that "the country" is a nice place for their uncontrollable or unwanted cat or dog. 

These abandoned pets will sometimes come onto the ranch. If the cats get along with our barn cats and can fit in then they get to stay. If they fight with our cats then our cats come first. 

The dogs don't usually make it to the house before something gets to them. Mountain lions, wolves, coyotes, and even eagles like to eat dogs and it is very unpleasant to see the aftermath. 

When we ran cattle we had to shoot too many dogs who thought that chasing cattle was fun. The cattle would get injured and sometimes have to be put down and that cost us money because that was beef that didn't get sold. So our cattle came first. 

When we started running bison was when we noticed that it seemed the Golden Retrievers were the worst for trying to chase these animals. Bison are not cattle! If they run away from you it's usually because they're picking up speed to turn around and attack. Silly stupid dogs would get run down and sometimes horribly pounded before we'd find them and put them down. 

We are not going to run up vet bills on someone else's animals and taking them to a humane shelter isn't going to work either because that involves trapping the animal and taking a day to drive to the shelter and drop it off and then drive back. 

So what made me write all of this? 

I'm out this morning feeding the hogs and this teeny-tiny dog is shivering like crazy and comes up to me practically begging to be held. I picked it up and took it inside and fed it and got it warm. We will probably keep it. It's a teacup Chihuahua and not hardly a ranch dog and clearly someone's pet.

Last night was maybe 25F and this poor thing was out at least overnight and maybe a few nights. We're a good ten miles from the highway over some mountains and that's what this little dog had to cross to get here. 

Don't get me wrong, I feel bad for the other dogs that we see here but this one is so small and defenseless that it just seems so damned wrong that someone would let it go in the wilderness either on purpose or by negligence. 

Just had to get this out. 

I'll write an actual update sometime soon. 

Merry Christmas to you all if I don't get to say that before Christmas!