I was working at the assisted living facility in Lakeway, Texas as a medication aide. My job consisted of getting to work at  0500 and making my rounds giving residents medications. Many residents needed medications multiple times a day. By the time I  finished the morning rounds it was time to start with the afternoon medications. This was a job where I needed to be well rested , alert as giving the wrong medication at the incorrect time , wrong dose or with a conflicting drug could be dangerous or fatal. I had to be on my A game!

I was used to going to bed early so that I could get a good night sleep . Things had been going pretty well until some new people moved across the street and down a house.  Their backyard was just kitty corner from my bedroom window.

I generally went to  bed around 2200  and at 2300 I was  awakened by a bark bark bark bark. It sounded like a herd of dogs outside my window. I got up , got dressed and I went down the street to find the barking dogs. I rang the bell of the new neighbors house and  told them that they needed to bring they dogs inside as they were barking continuously and that I needed to be up early. The dog owners told me that their bedroom faces the other way so they cannot hear them bark. I asked them nicely to please bring the dogs inside but they refused. So every night for 3 weeks when the dogs woke me up I would get up, get dressed and go ring the doorbell to ask the dog owners to please bring the dogs inside. By the end of the three weeks I was tired and  sleep deprived. I was using ear plugs but the noise echoed from the dogs backyard into my window. So i decided to get up one last time. I walked to their house . But this time instead of ringing the bell I just stood there outside the gate. The dogs stopped barking. I started to go back home but then they started barking again. So I walked over and opened the gate to the back yard. I noticed a 50 lb bag of dog food on the ground with a circle cut out of the center  for the dogs to eat out of and a huge tub for water that was empty. I looked around the backyard and then I looked at the doggies and I don’t know what came over me but I said, “Go now , be free! ” I walked home leaving the gate wide open.

The next day a friend called me and told me she found a  lovely dog without a collar. She had wanted a dog! A few days later another friend called me and said she had also found a dog and if she didn’t see any signs up she would be happy to keep it. So both dogs ended up with good new owners and I got to sleep!

And now for the confession! Both my friends put up signs that they found the dogs and every morning on my way to work I would take them down.

I never did see any lost dogs signs so I figure those dog owners really should not have had dogs!

The photo of the dogs in this blog are not the dogs I set free.