Glass and Paws

The house we are renting has a huge, fenced yard that is planted, with one exception, only around the perimeter. It doesn't make for a pretty yard, but it does make it pretty good for a game of chuck-it. There is no grass, which is not unusual here. Most yards, even those with fairly intense plantings are sand, and ours is no exception. Where people may mow their lawn at home, here people rake the sand regularly to clean up debris. I don't know how old this house is, but I think it's a fair bet to say the yard has seldom, if ever, been raked.

Waiting for the ball to move.

I haven't done much of a survey of the property beyond regular pooper-scooping and playing ball with Bella. But when she sliced open a pad on her back foot, I began to pay attention. The yard is littered with broken glass, rusted nails and wire, pieces of plastic and broken ceramic tiles. It changes each day as we drive across it or Bella runs through it. New debris surfaces regularly. Every couple of days, I'd make a circuit with a grocery bag picking up shards, nails and anything looking sharp. When Bella cut another pad, I declared war.

I found an old, rusted (what else?) rake and began raking the yard. With each small scratch of the surface, handfuls of glass appeared. It has been hugely discouraging. In five days, I have only covered a third of the yard and when I finish, I realize I'll need to begin again. And I am not the only one doing this. A good friend has come over three separate days and helped me for hours. My husband took over raking today and only did a small section. He was astounded.

I think when the house was built, the workers just threw their beer bottles into the yard. Because this is a rental, perhaps people coming through the neighborhood have recognized that the house isn't constantly occupied and have done the same. Perhaps the owners and other renters have tossed their bottles into the yard because that is culturally not an aberrant thing to do here.

But however they got here, the bottles have broken into zillions of tiny, sharp, paw-cutting, brown, green and clear pieces. Driven or walked over, the glass gets pushed into the sand. With Bella running around the yard, she's churning it back up. I'll finish raking and picking up a section only to have the light play over an area I have finished and it will sparkle with hundreds of missed shards.

My friend says I should leave all the bags for our landlord to see. I'd rather see the glass gone, but perhaps she's right. At least for now, they are a sign of progress for me. I am still hesitant to toss a ball for Bella, but feel slightly better that a very large portion of debris has been removed from part of the yard.

My poor girl. She gave little indication of what had happened. With the first slice, which was the deepest, she neither licked her paw nor limped, so I had no knowledge of what had happened to her until I spotted it. With the second slice, I knew. We cleaned her feet and applied Neosporin. She spent an unhappy day inside with her back foot wrapped up in a sock.

We haven't taken her biking in a week; tomorrow morning we'll take her on a small ride. Tomorrow afternoon, you'll find me back at raking and picking.