The Dog Next Door

We've only seen her through our fence.  Her name is Bella and she's a sweet dog, but very lonely.  She lives for the moments Panda and Sadie come out into the backyard to play.  She plays vicariously through them as I toss tennis ball after tennis ball.  Bella races along the fence back and forth repeatedly pretending she is part of the action.  Her owners don't seem to like it when I toss her a ball, but sometimes I just do because she loves it so.  She will run along the fence with it in her mouth, while my spoiled dogs chase the ones I throw over and over again.

   

Our neighbors aren't bad people, but they just don't seem to understand that a dog needs exercise and attention.  I've never seen Bella go on a walk.  No one plays with her in the backyard.  She gets yelled at when she barks (if they are home to hear it). 

Bella has worn a trench along the fence where she races in her pretend play with my lucky dogs.

They used to leave her out all day while they worked and poor Bella would bark so much.  It even got on my nerves, but I would feel bad for her and toss treats over the fence, thus probably re-inforcing the barking.  She was so lonely that she would sit by the fence and watch us through our family room window.  She could hear the Bostons running around in there having fun and she felt left out.  Then, she would bark at me if I sat down to watch TV.  She had the perfect place to sit and watch me.  So I had to come up with something so she didn't have such a clear view of me.

It was that bottom left hand corner where Bella could see me.  I searched for screens, thought about curtains and shades.  I've always liked the openess of the windows without anything on them, but Bella was breaking my heart and getting on my nerves!

I found some bi-fold doors in the bargain bin at Lowe's.  They were already pre-painted and when I put them up to frame the window they covered "the Bella Space" perfectly.  They just needed a little embellishment and they would be just right for me.

I hung up a pretty windchime with birds that remind me of Rita the Wren.

The top still looked bare, so I took a garland I had on top of my china cabinet and tried it out on top of the bi-folds and wind chime support. I'm kind of liking it.

I broke many of the photgraphy rules, backlighting in particular, but I won't be here come sundown tonight.  Now I'm thinking I might need some sheers back there... One thing always leads to another.

Bella's owners are not keeping her outside all day anymore.  But I notice when I'm out playing with the black and whites, the neighbors let Bella out pronto to do her run along the fence.  She enjoys it so much and I feel somewhat better that she at least gets some exercise.  I think "they" feel that although it's a pain to let her out whenever we are out there, at least she calms down and gets a good run.  So, we've fallen into an unofficial pattern of behavior, both the humans and the dogs. And I still toss her the tennis ball every so often.