Our "Almost Doggie"

A puppy just suddenly moved into our apartment complex. We don't know where it came from. I thought it was our neighbors. I mean, why would a strange dog, er puppy just suddenly live here. But the poor thing seems to be ownerless. It has grown thin and skinny. It doesn't bark at us though but wags its tail whenever it sees us. We decided to call it "Almost Doggie" or "Doggie" for short since its not really our dog but seems like our dog since it lives here. Oh well, hopefully I didn't confuse you there.

We thought our neighbor feeds it since they feed Macky, the official dog here. I haven't seen them feed it though or see any sign of a food container for it. It does sleep in the neighbor's mat so I guess that's the extent of their hospitality. My sister finally pitied it and gave it chicken bones Thursday night during dinner. And to follow was clean water since it has been very warm. We didn't want it to suffer heat stroke.

Today, when my mom saw the poor thing, she gave it lunch again. Apparently, it was sleeping in front of our door. I noticed that she had been doing that yesterday night too after I gave her food.

After dinner today, I felt sad for her so I gave her food again. I think she wasn't that satisfied since she banged on the door twice. I just called her and that seemed to make her happy.

She has been rather fond of going out of the gate too and creating a raucuous with the other dogs. Since she's so skinny, she can pass in between the gaps in the gate. She probably barks at anything or anyone who passes by. We could hear her upstairs during the night.

Hopefully, she won't get into trouble outside or get hit by a passing vehicle. Or worse, caught by the village dog catchers. During summer, they catch dogs that just walk around and you have to pay like two hundred pesos to claim your dog. It will just break our heart if they take her and then nobody claims her.

My sister said she should be getting used to being petted. But I guess that's going to take sometime. She's still pretty skittish and runs away whenver I try to pet her. I just hope she gets tamed pretty soon.

Here's to "Almost Doggie." May her real owners look for her and find her before its too late. And until then, we'll do our best to take care of her.