So, back at the begining of the year, our neighbors asked us if we could take one of their dogs off their hands. Little black cocker spaniel. Their other dogs were fighting with her, and they were looking for a new home for her. We took her in and took care of her for several months, but these last two months or so, after she'd gotten of a treatment regimen for heartworms, she's been a real handful. Wanting out when she was inside, demanding constant attention whether she was inside or out, howling at all hours of the day and night.

Then, she started getting out of the fenced back yard. Now, admittedly, the fence isn't in the best repair, but we patched up the hole she was using to get out. Well, yesterday, she makes herself a new hole and goes back to the neighbors house. The message was pretty clear. She didn't want us as a family, she missed her old people (And she must have made up with the other dog who she was fighting with, I suspect because at the time the fights were happening, she was about to go into heat, but has since been spayed).

So rather than risk her getting hurt by forcing her way through the fence again and again, we asked the neighbors if they wanted to take her back. I think they realized as much as we did that she'd never given up on her old family, so they did.

Even so, the rejection stings pretty hard.