Quote of the day...er...week...umm...hey, look, a quote!!

"...besides love, independence of thought is the greatest gift an adult can give a child." - Bryce Courtenay, The Power of One

For old quotes, look here.

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Bitch, Moan, Complain, Woof

Sigh. I'm trying to be my better self, but I'm annoyed and my compassion is slipping. The neighbors have a rather bark-y dog, looks and sounds like maybe a hound mix. It barks and barks and BARKS incessantly when we're out in our yard. It stands at the fence (which they put almost to the property line so it's quite close to Casa de Crazy) and hollers and growls at us constantly. The neighbors knows the dog does this and will occasionally make a half-hearted attempt at hushing the critter, mostly consisting of yelling the dog's name several times and then ignoring it as it continues to chastise us for existing. It seems supremely disinterested in making friends or being congenial. While I'm adept at ignoring noise for the most part, it is awfully difficult to ignore or be tolerant at 6:30 in the morning, or when we're outside dealing with the trailer, playing in the yard, even trying to have a simple conversation while enjoying the lovely weather out there. Bark, bark, barkbarkbarkbarkBAAARRRRRK!!!! We can't even walk to the mailbox or the shprt distance to the van without an explosion of woofs and general sounding of the hound alert announcing "DEFCON 5, THE HOTTENTOTS ARE COMING, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD WOOOOOOOOOF!!!!!" They haven't shown any interest in or effort towards teaching any of their dogs manners, and as they are usually indoors when the dog is outdoors, they just ignore the muffled noise inside their house seemingly without regard to how it disrupts anyone else's day. The dog is being a dog, telling us to keep away from its territory, warning its humans that strangers are near, and telling the world at large that it's ready to protect its pack. I get it. What I don't get is how any human who is kept by a dog could let it go apeshit that way and not teach it when to warn and when to be silent, how any human can keep from responding when their canine family member is going off like that. Dogs bark to communicate. Letting them bark constantly like that tells them that they don't matter or that they need to be louder and more urgent to get your attention. Also? It's rude as fuck. So now that you've read this far, question: What do I do about it? The neighbor is the unpleasant one,. When she saw me unhitching the trailer yesterday she rather hopefully asked if we were moving. So dejected when I replied no, we aren't moving, I was just keeping the trailer here now so it's handy for me. Trying to talk to her is like trying to hug a thorn bush...awfully prickly, not really productive, and not likely to be worth the effort. So do I call animal control? Code enforcement? The cops? Do I find some canine Valium and feed it doctored hot dogs? What's a gal to do?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Call. Call every.single.day.

They'd call on you, and have, no?

Unknown said...

Call. Call every.single.day.

They'd call on you, and have, no?