"Integrity is doing the right thing, even if nobody is watching."
Now that I have a dog, I carry the responsibilities that any dog owner should do: clean up after your dog! At my apartment, I'd have to say that a lot of dog owners do a really poor job of this. Every time I take Nala out, I get disgusted by all the droppings from other dogs that weren't picked up by their owners. I still use the trash bags from the pet stations that the complex conveniently puts out for us. I still clean up after my dog, but no one will ever know... Every time someone sees me with the dog, they can easily think, "Ugh, she's one of them dog owners that don't clean up their dog's mess!"
This morning I took Nala out on the top deck to let her loose and play around. Another guy was there with his great dane and we let the two dogs play together. He introduced himself and it was fun to have the two dogs play. After a while, Nala needed to go and I immediately took her downstairs to the area to go. When I came back up with Nala, the other guy and his dog already left. However, there was something new that wasn't there before! That's right, a huge pile of.... CRAP. That really pissed me off.
Later on another residential couple drove up and noticed me and my dog. When they got out of their car, they noticed the dropping and I could tell they were severely pissed. I was pissed because they probably thought it belonged to my dog. I was standing afar, but I noticed they even took a picture of that pile, so I knew they'd tell management. Moments later, the complex management came up. I saw them walking towards me and that made me even more scared/pissed that I'd get in trouble for something I didn't do.
AMAZINGLY enough, instead management asked, "Do you know who it was with the dog before you came up?" I was surprised they didn't accuse me first. I told them the name the guy had introduced to me earlier and told them the story and that it was definitely his dog. They believed me and we talked about the problem with many residents not cleaning up after their dog. They assured me that they're working on it. I was just surprised that they weren't accusing me of anything!
So today I learned the importance of integrity. I'll never understand why I wasn't accused when I was the only one with the dog up there (seemingly obvious that it'd be my fault), but I'll still continue doing the right thing.
That's it for now. I'm really enjoying my dog. It's been so fun teaching her so many tricks! So far it's Sit, Lay Down, Roll Over, Up, Paw, and Go Home. My favorite is Bang Bang! and she plays dead, because it's the cutest one. I'll show it all in a video someday!
Edit: Okay, Angela just told me they probably had surveillance cameras and that's how they knew it wasn't me. Makes sense! Well then all this integrity talk, my butt! They already knew! Haha just kidding, integrity is still a very good thing, yes.
