Someone or something keeps leaving meat in my yard. I don’t mean anonymous bits of meat that may or may not be human. It’s not severed fingers or kidneys or things like that. It’s hot dogs. Chicken legs. Cooked red meat. Pork (don’t point out that if it looks like pork it could be human. I’m pretty sure it’s things like pork chop remnants). I don’t know where it comes from. I don’t know why it ends up in my yard. All I know is that I’m really afraid to take my dog out into my back yard because I don’t know if he’s going to eat something he shouldn’t.
I live in the city and there are rats. There are pigeons and seagulls. There are stray cats. Any one of these things could be digging food out of trashcans and dropping it in my yard. It could be some well-meaning person in the neighborhood feeding the stray cats. It could be some well-meaning person thinking s/he’s leaving a treat for my dog and cats.
It could be someone leaving poisoned meat out to kill rats and stray cats. It could be some evil-minded person leaving it specifically in my yard to kill my dog or cats.
I don’t care. I don’t care if it’s someone with the best intentions. It’s scary and it’s disgusting.
Today it was fish sticks and that was my breaking point. I got home from work and let the dog out for a pee. The dog grabbed something up from the grass. I tried to pry his mouth open to get it out. The dog is a terrier. He has incredibly strong jaws and if he doesn’t want to open them it’s very hard to force him. I finally got the food out and was really not pleased to see what it was. It explains the dog’s extreme desire to not let it go, though. He’s never had fish. I’m violently allergic to all things seafood so standing there with dog spit and chewed up fish on my hands was not pleasant. I’ve washed my hands twice already and feel like I need to do it about twelve more times (possibly with bleach) before I’ll be okay with the idea of putting my hands anywhere near my face.
Most importantly, I don’t know if it’s poisoned. My dog can’t tell me if it tastes funny or if he feels sick. All I can do is try to get it out of his mouth as fast as possible and hope he doesn’t swallow any of it. It’s not so bad if it’s daylight — I can usually see before he grabs something or almost immediately after he’s picked something up. But if it’s dark? Or if I’m distracted by something else? There’s no guarantee I’ll see it.
Seriously. How many people go out in the yard with their dog and watch it like a hawk? Almost no one. You go out there with a book or a drink, or you talk to a neighbor, or you deal with laundry or the plants, or you just woolgather and look at the clouds. Most people don’t even go out with their dogs at all — it’s just “turn it loose and let it pee”. I can’t. For about a month now I have to be out there, hovering over him, watching every single thing he sniffs or looks at and he still manages to pick up food. And then I get scared, which makes me angry, so I yell at the dog to get him to drop it because I’m scared, and then I spend the rest of the night just staring at him and wondering if he’s been poisoned.
Going outside with my dog shouldn’t make me want to cry.