Crazy experience with a dog walker

Our neighbors started using a dog walker back in the spring, and I immediately noticed that the woman was "off". She weighs about 300 pounds--not that it has to do with her story, but it helps to paint the picture--she has kind of that demented, crazy-haired aura to her and drives a Suzuki Samurai. That's important, because every time she would come to walk the neighbors dogs, she'd have at least 2 other dogs that would be left in her car for the half-hour she was walking. At most, she would leave the window open an inch or so. One time, one of the 3 dogs in her car was going nuts, jumping around and kept hitting the horn. Anyway, I told my neighbor about this, and that it's bulls**t that this woman leaves dogs in her car while out walking another client's dogs. She said she would talk to her, and probably did. The neighbor's daughter came home for the summer and they didn't need the dog walker again until this week. Yesterday, the husband came over to borrow their spare key since the dog walker lost the one they had given her. Nice. Well, today she came to walk the dogs and she left 4 dogs in her tiny car, in the heat and humidity, window barely cracked. My wife got pissed and went outside just to tell her that what she was doing was wrong, but remained calm. The walker turned and shoved my wife, who restrained herself and came back indoors (they were out of view, so she then told me). Well, now I'm pissed off, so I went outside and told her "Look, you do your business however you feel fit. But you NEVER lay another finger on anyone." She started shrieking at me, saying she was going to have us arrested for harrassing her. I reminded her that it's illegal to strand a dog in a car, to which she responded "Oh, go f**k yourself! It's MY car." "Excuse me? Did you just tell me to go f**k myself?" And she stormed back into the house and screamed "GO F**K YOURSELF!" while slamming the door. Obviously I told my neighbor, as well as finding him a good dog walker to replace her, but he said that she had called and left him a message saying she quit. He agreed the woman seemed nuts and was happy to dismiss her. An hour or so later we were at the grocery store and saw my neighbors wife. I immediately apologized for the inconvenience, told her that we had found a good replacement and so on. But she seemed pissed at us because our meddling was complicating her life. Sorry for going on, maybe not a great story, but needed to write it down. I'm going to make sure that the other clients are aware that their dog sitter is literally sitting them in her car.

 

Yeah, she's a crackpot. I have her license plate #, and I'm going to get her business info from my neighbor. The city of Chicago is in the process of establishing regulations for the care of dogs since there are an estimated 600,000 of them here. I am also on terms with some of the Aldermen spearheading these initiatives. Rather than get into any kind of pissing match directly with this lady, I'm going to report her to the Dept. of Business Affairs to make sure she's on record as having committed offenses. Only a few weeks ago a man in the area left his puppy in the car while he went shopping. The car heated up fast (it was 90+ degrees outside!), and the puppy, who still was wearing a collar and leash, began desperately jumping around the inside of the car in an attempt to escape. The dog ended up dying by strangling itself on the leash. This guy will probably end up with jail time.

 

Just to paint a little picture, at the time this happened, there were a quarter million people a mile away at the lakefront for the air show, 40,000 people a couple blocks away for the Cubs/Cardinals game, and a couple thousand folks attending a festival down the street. Calling the cops to tell them some fat lady parked in front of my house with dogs in her car probably wouldn't have drawn much of a response. I guess I'm not sure what you mean exactly by nice guys finishing last. I didn't want to be the one to confront her initially because any time a man confronts a woman there's an immediate implied threat. My plan the whole time has been to bury her professionally, which is what I will still do. Sure, I would have loved to smash the s**t out of her little red crap box. And it took every bit of will power to refrain from smacking the s**t out of her fat face. That, indeed, would have drawn a response from the cops. I couldn't care less what this bitsch does with her personal time. But I'm going to do something about her ability to make a living mistreating dogs. So if that's somehow being nice, and if that's something you interpret as being weak, so be it. I know I'm doing the right thing and that's all I really care about.

 

Thanks! That's exactly how I feel. For a brief moment we asked eachother if we thought our neighbor was upset with us, or just the combo of this along with her job (she's been unhappy), her daughter going back to school and having weekend guests. That said, we reminded ourselves that what is right isn't conditional to the feelings of others. I guarantee the dog walker's other clients are unaware of her practices, and if they were, would be livid. What she's doing is wrong, and it should be addressed. If my neighbor is upset with us, feeling like we've "meddled", then that is something we'll just have to deal with. But that doesn't change the facts of what has happened.

 

Are you asking "Why do people buy dogs who can't take care of them themselves?" Lots of reasons. In the case of my neighbors, they moved from DC a little over a year ago. They are now empty-nesters--young ones at that--and so the wife has decided to take a part-time job. They actually have two rather old dogs. A lot of people put their dogs into daycare, but since these are too old for that, they use a dog walker. There are dog services available now that rival what's available for people.