In my area there is a house that I must pass to get out onto the main street. This one house has two old large dogs that look out the open storm door now that it is warm and greet everyone that passes by. The first time I walked by the barked and barked their heads off. After a few times of me going by the house every day the one dog stopped barking the other dog only barked once as if to stay what you again! I think it is cute to see how the dogs can get comfortable with you quickly.
Years ago, shortly after I found work with Hoerner-Waldorf Bag Plant, which was in Fullerton, California, my car wasn't running and I was working the second shift. I could take the bus to work but they were no longer running when I got out at eleven, so I would have to walk about five miles back home. Along the way was a vary large storage facility. A very large and vicious dog would follow me all along the other side of the fence, growling and barking at me. As he growled and barked at me, I talked softly to him. After a while, he quit growling at me, but would still follow me along his side of the fence, and I'd talk to him. One night, I could see that he wasn't looking vicious at all, so I stopped and talked to him. Then I put my hand up to the fence and he tried to rub his head on it. I put my hand through the fence and petted him. After that, although he continued to growl and bark at anyone else who came along, if it was just me, he would come to the fence eagerly to be petted. He'd roll on his back, and follow me all along the way, wanting to be petted the whole way. The only time he barked was when I reached the end of the fence, and he'd bark at me to come back.
My aunt sent this to me, it's evidently been making the rounds on the internet, but I thought it was cute, and seemed to fit into this thread. “An older, tired-looking dog wandered into my yard; I could tell from his collar and well-fed belly that he had a home and was well taken care of. He calmly came over to me, I gave him a few pats on his head; he then followed me into my house, slowly walked down the hall, curled up in the corner and fell asleep. An hour later, he went to the door, and I let him out. “The next day he was back, greeted me in my yard, walked inside and resumed his spot in the hall and again slept for about an hour. This continued off and on for several weeks. “Curious I pinned a note to his collar, ‘I would like to find out who the owner of this wonderful sweet dog is and ask if you are aware that almost every afternoon your dog comes to my house for a nap.’ “The next day he arrived for his nap, with a different note pinned to his collar, ‘He lives in a home with 6 children, 2 under the age of 3 and he’s trying to catch up on his sleep. Can I come with him tomorrow?’”
Years ago, I had a motorized Sunday paper route. This route was 90% in the country and nice in the summer, but not so nice in the winter. I had an older model Nash Rambler that I used for this purpose and it served me well. Anyhow, this one farm I delivered to had a giant St. Bernard named Goliath. When he saw the Rambler coming down the dirt road, he would run up to the car and stand up on the side of the car. Goliath would not let me put the paper in the mail box until I made a big fuss over him. After he had slobbered all,over the car, he would prod back to the porch and let me deliver the paper. The first time I delivered here, Goliath almost gave a a heart attack. A good neighbor for sure.
I live in the countryside in a third world country. I know people for miles around and find most all good people. I lost my wallet two times both times returned to me. I lost a jack knife in a taxi in six months the taxi driver seen me and return my knife. This county is listed as an unsafe country by the tourist companies in other countries. I was born and raised in Canada and it is listed as safe all the years I lived there nothing that I lost was ever returned. Living in tourist areas and big cities you have no idea who trust worthy that person standing beside you is.
I have immediate neighbors here that I can trust with anything. I've been there for them, and they've been there for me. It makes a big difference when you know there's someone around who is watching out for you, and has your back. I like the reciprocity here in my neighborhood. Some of us swap desserts, share leftovers, house, baby, and cat sit for others. One night, when I was up here asleep, my neighbors called the police, because a strange car with a man inside was parked at the end of my driveway for hours. My closest friends' neighbors, who don't even know me, were the ones to see it, and called my friends, because they didn't have my number. I was sleeping so deeply, I didn't even hear the phone ring. My friends know about my stalker, so they called the police. It turned out to be the crazy father of my (at the time) crackhead next door neighbor, and the police got him to move on, and it never happened again. Thankfully, that tenant has moved. I haven't met the people who currently live there, but they seem to be o.k., so I'll eventually meet them, if they stay long enough.
I have a couple of pretty good neighbors. Since I work late and generally get up late, one of my neighbors has usually cleared my driveway and sidewalk with a snowblower before I get up, which I feel a little guilty about so I try to reciprocate as much as I can with lawnmowing or shoveling on days when they are away from home, so that they have a driveway they can get into when they return.
Ahh, those are good neighbors, like my friend/neighbors. They help me out with yard chores sometimes, and I do what I can to reciprocate in other ways. At one point, they had ill family members a few hours away, so pretty much every weekend (and some weeks) for a couple of years, I would cat and house sit for them, but I don't keep track. I was just glad I was able to alleviate some of their stress, because that was definitely a rough patch for them. That's what friends do, and some neighbors, too, if you're lucky .
I have some great neighbors here in our community. A retired policeman and his lovely wife, she is from England, on one side and a nice lady on the other side. Across the street, another policeman. We also have the neighbor watch program and on call which alerts us to unusual activities. My cop neighbor keeps watch on our house, while we are up north, and parks one of his cars in our carport.
I have seen this before, but I love the pic and story, it's such a sweet tale. I'm always seeing posts in the neighborhood Facebook group of dogs that've gotten out, and are being watched by others, until the owners can come get them. It's nice to see so many who care about animals .
When we lived in Roanoke City, Virginia we lived in an up-scale, urban neighborhood where the houses were on tiny lots. We lived on a street with an elementary school less than 1/2 a block away. We had this really outgoing cat. He had a cat door (as described in several other posts). Each morning and afternoon, he would go outside and lay in the front yard, right next to the sidewalk. All the kids walking past would stop and pet him. Another time, for about a week he kept coming home smelling like perfume. It really puzzled us until we talked to a neighbor. Evidently, he would go to her house every day and meow to be let in. She would feed him treats and pet him for awhile before he would get up and go to the door to be let out. After this revelation, we talked to some of our other neighbors about our "friendly" cat and discovered that he had several other sponsors who would fuss over him and give him treats. I think that he actually had more friends than we did.
When I was living in Long Beach, California, a white cat came to my door and invited herself in. Although she was free to come and go whenever she wanted to during the day, she became my cat. She was with me for more than two years, then she didn't come home one night. I worried that she had been hit by a car or that something else had happened to her. Since I didn't have an assigned parking space, I sometimes had to park as much as two blocks from my home. As I was walking to my car one morning, I saw a white cat sitting on someone's porch railing. I stopped. She jumped down from the railing and came over to me. It was her. However, when I tried to pick her up, she struggled to get away. She enjoyed my petting her but she didn't want to come with me. I guess she had found a better deal, or perhaps that may have been where she had come from to begin with, and they were remarking about the cat that returned home two years after becoming lost.
Cats are so funny, each has his/her own personality. We had a cat growing up (Mismoe), who got scared while tied out on a line in my aunt and uncle's yard, and ran off. We were without her for 3 weeks, but we drove down there every day, and looked around for her, without success. During that time, a stray cat (Nosey) adopted us, and would even sleep inside with us at night. Nosey wandered off a few days before a young neighbor of my aunt and uncle found Mismoe, and we were able to bring her home. I always feed the strays here, and they've pretty much adopted my driveway and yards as their own. I would let them wander in/out, but my kitties are very territorial. I found that out when Grayson, one of the strays, wandered in, unknown to me. I came back in from feeding them, and a gray streak flew by me, as Grayson fled from Seamus, my alpha kitty.
I took in a feral cat (Bird), whom I lost at the age of twenty-two. When she became a house cat, my two cats (now twenty-four) hated her, and twenty years later, they still treated her as if she didn't belong there. Cutie, my alpha, would wait by the cat door so that she could slap Bird as soon as her head appeared in the door.
Haha, that's so mean, but it made me laugh to know I'm not the only one dealing with territorial kitties. My youngest and newest to the household is very neurotic, and needs to either be hiding, or in my lap. The others really don't bother her, but she probably had a bad experience prior to finding me, and it seems she'll never get over it. For the most part, mine get along, as long as they have their own spaces. There's a definite pecking order here, and it pretty much corresponds to their ages, and when they came into the household.