Today I wanted to relax and catch up with friends.  After collecting Moons I arrived home to drop her off with the Nanny to find her in rather a fluster.  She had seen a van with two maori men sitting inside come up our driveway, they had spotted her and then left rather promptly.  She had used her initiative and taken down the rego which was great.  Sometimes people mistake the houses up our road because of the mailboxes being at the bottom, but this van didn't go anywhere else.  Although it could have been innocent, I decided to err on the side of caution and telephoned the local 'community constable.'  Turns out there have been a spate of robberies in our area, they said they would pass the information onto their intelligence unit and get back to us.  I found it reassuring that they left when they saw someone, that would indicate to me that if it was 'dodgy' they were just keen to get our stuff.  And material objects aren't important in the grand scheme of things.  For some reason the dog flickered through my mind, only because I'd bought it from a maori chap.  When I had spoken to the council about microchipping as is the law here, they told me they would rather wait until he's 3 months.  When they asked me the breed, they told me I might want to consider getting it down sooner.  I felt that wasn't necessary as he's never really going to left alone.  At the time, the council woman kept hinting that he was a desirable breed 'in this area' but I failed to recognise where she was going with that.  Deciding that he is afterall, rather a valuable breed I called the woman back to discuss what had happened and see about chipping.  Again she started to take this route of wanting to imply something, unable to determine where she was going I asked her flat out what she was trying to tell me.  Turns out the British Bulldog is the emblam of the mongrel mob (NZ gang) who's 'headquarters' happen to be in our local town.  They see these bulldogs and snatch them up.  She asked me about the breeder and I said he was Moari and since I'd bought the dog from him I was unable to contact him.  He's supposed to register the dog with the kennel club in my name and pass on my details to an insurance company.  He said he would keep the paperwork and do it for me, all he needed was my address. I honestly didn't think anything of it, he was nice guy, I met a lot of his family (!!) and he let me take the dog before I'd even paid the full amount.  I figured he was busy and hadn't had time to contact me.  The woman told to bring the dog down straight away for a chip, look at our security, report everything to the police and basically, to take care!  GULP!  I then telephoned the NZ kennel club who, although recognised his business name, had not received information about the sale of puppies.  I then telephoned the insurance company who had not received my information.  I telephoned my good friend, J, who has lived in the area all her life and seems to know everything and everyone in particular she's a bit of a pet person.  I had told her about the bulldog and she'd told me to take care of him, but I decided she was just looking out for him.  When I telephoned her later that day, she said she was surprised I didn't know anything about the bulldog, she said she knew people with the dogs who didn't walk them locally, and basically kept them under tight security.  When she'd been asked to look after someone's bulldog, she said she'd been terrified when walking him!!  If I'd have known any of this, I might have reconsidered my choice.  At the moment, he's just little Sam, who is scared of the dark and likes cuddles.  His affliation with a notorious gang is just ridiculous to me!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongrel_Mob

Initially I felt rather caught up with what can only be described as the hysteria of our Nanny and the woman from the council.  I suggested that Steve and I take time some time out to gather our thoughts.  I have to say that by the end of the day I felt so completely drained and by night I was more than a little jumpy, unfortunately, it was a particularly windy night as well!  The only thing we can do is just be a little bit more cautious.  Only I seem to be able to get myself into these situations!