Those Yapping Dogs

“I’m gonna shoot those dogs one day,” I announce to my wife as the digital clock flashes 6:30 — on a Saturday morning.  

You see, the problem is that I have a neighbor who is basically in a coma all of the time. She is three houses down and is totally oblivious to the constant baying of her hounds in her back yard. Maybe baying is not the right word. The better word is yelping. They are small, pesky dogs (I don’t know what kind), and they are constantly screeching right into my bedroom window.

I just don’t get it. I’ve got a dog, a standard poodle named Paris. We did spend some money to get her trained and maybe my neighbor couldn’t afford to do the same, but I doubt it. But even if your dog has not been trained, don’t you hear the darn things making NOISE in your back yard? Are you totally obvious to the fact that your little poochies are barking their buns off?

Of course, the noise is even more noticeable on the weekend when we try to sleep in a little.  We’re early risers during the week and we don’t seem to hear them as much because we’re getting ready for the day. But, unless you’ve got hyper-active 7 year olds, Saturday mornings are a time of rest. And these dogs seem to take great delight in reminding us that our weekend has started — very early.   

Making matters worse, they are great escape artists. They roam around a fenced-in back yard but like Steve McQueen in a POW camp, they have a knack for getting out and taking a walk around our neighborhood. On several occasions, I’ve actually tracked them down when I saw them out for an unleashed stroll and brought them back to their pen. Yes, I’ve had thoughts about letting them wander further away, but why take it out on the dogs themselves?    

I’ve talked to the two adults who live at the house and I might as well be talking to my own dog. No, that’s insulting to my dog. And I’ve talked to the police, who are in charge of animal control. But I feel guilty asking them to spend time sitting outside a house waiting for a dog to bark when they could be spending their time on more important things, like sitting on Old Mill Road trapping scofflaws who are going 35 miles per hour. And, when they do show up, it doesn’t matter because it’s like when your car is making a clanking sound and you make an appointment at Billy Joe’s Auto Repair Shop (the one right next to Bob’s Auto Parts Emporium). As you know, the minute you drive up the clanking stops. 

So, instead, I must now resort to my award-winning column to get things off my chest and make a statement. 

Wake up folks. How the heck can you be sitting in your house and not hear your yapping dogs? Or, is it possible that you do hear them and you just don’t care?   I mean, I’m watching my dog right now, sitting in our unfenced back yard and if she started barking for too long, I would go outside and chastise her.  And, if in the incredibly unlikely event that she kept barking, I would walk her back into the house. 

The point is that we all live in some form of neighborhood which coincidentally is populated with “neighbors.”  And we all have a right to the enjoyment of our home. 

Shut those dogs up — or next time I just might let them continue walking up the street.