Poor Gringo...

You remember Gringo...the dog that lives in the yard behind mine. He's still around and his owner, otherwise known as Mr. Asshole, still does not pay a lick of attention to the poor little guy. Never...EVER...does he even remotely acknowledge the fact that he has a dog other than putting his food out on the back step without so much as a "Here you go, Gringo!" It seems like the only highlight in poor Gringo's life is when we come outside and go over to pet him and give him a dog treat...but only if Mr. Asshole isn't home. This is what he looks like every time one of us goes outside...

Well, it's been REALLY hot here in South Texas lately (like over 100 degrees), so we haven't spent much time outside. I've noticed that Gringo spends most of his time in a crawl space beneath Mr. Asshole's house to get out of the sun because he NEVER lets him inside the house.

One evening, Jeffrey, Erica and I were sitting on the back patio and Gringo was at the fence, as usual. Mr. Asshole wasn't home, so Jeffrey went over and plucked little Gringo from his prison to come and play with us for a little bit. Oh, my God, it was like he was in seventh heaven. I know that's not right and you shouldn't "borrow" a dog just because you feel sorry for him, but what can I say? My heart goes out to the little guy every time I see him. So, he got some loving attention for a short while and then we put him back, unbeknownst to Mr. Asshole.

So, tonight, Jared and I barbecued some ribs and were sitting outside when we noticed that Gringo hadn't come up to the fence. We whistled for him and about a minute later, we saw him standing by the side of his house, but he wasn't running up to the fence like he normally does. We called to him and he VERY slowly starting walking towards the fence. When he got about halfway, he started yelping very loudly as if he was in pain. Jared was standing at the fence and he noticed that there was a fishing lure lodged in one of Gringo's legs. Because Mr. Asshole wasn't at home, Jared jumped the fence to help him. He got one of the barbs out of his leg and I had to get a pliers so that he could get the other barb out of his collar that had gone all the way through. Here's the culprit, with rusty barbs, no less...

So, Jared surmised that Mr. Asshole purposely put the barb in his collar because he's been gone all weekend and this was a way to keep Gringo from possibly escaping the yard. Personally, I don't think it's possible that a barb could have gotten all the way through his collar just by him finding the lure under the house and playing around with it. Maybe we're jumping to conclusions, but any way you look at it, the whole scenario is just wrong. Jared and I talked about calling the Humane Society, but the biggest thing we'd have going against us is that he doesn't look like he's being abused. He's a very healthy looking dog. We also talked about how he would make such a wonderful pet for someone who cared about him after living with someone who could care less about him. Why do people have pets if they want nothing to do with them?