Puppy-nappers

On Saturday our puppy 'Ava went missing during the middle of the day. We were home, and hadn't seen her for just about an hour, and went walking up and down the beach and the roads by our house with no luck. We'd planned on going to the Liku (wild/undeveloped) side of the island with Sarah and Alicia for the afternoon, it was really nice out. And on that side of the island no one really goes there so we could wear our swimsuits! I thought 'Ava would be there when we got back, but she wasn't. We think she wandered off a little, and some Tongan stole her. It's common for that to happen. They'll take puppies out of people's yards too, our neighbor had told us that people come and steal the puppies at night. And Alicia took one of the puppies home, and early in the morning while she was sleeping some little Tongan kid stole the puppy out of her yard and cut off the collar she'd made. Someone saw him do it, so she was able to find the puppy. But no one knows where 'Ava is, the neighbor kids just kept saying "'Ava go far, far away", and that she's lost. We walked around after church and the feast yesterday, looking in people's yards but didn't find her. The couple that's running a dive shop here is also missing their dog. They said if you don't find the dog in a couple days it's either dead or in a pot, or if it's lucky maybe someone kept it as a pet. But they don't treat pets like we treat pets here. Tongans feed their pigs a lot, they're worth a lot of money and they want to fatten them to eat them. But the dogs aren't really fed, they get scraps sometimes or they'll look around for food on their own from what I've seen.

Brett's at school on his first day right now (it's Mon. about 10:30am, I don't think the blog post times are right most of the time). The mosquitos have been a lot worse lately, we've been burning coils by our doors and wearing more mosquito repellent.