I expect the police to come oozing up any day now, not in pursuit of my neighbors and their annoying dog, but rather after me. In addition to training Harley the Yapper not to bark at me, I'm attempting to train his Stupid Humans to get up off their fat asses and make him be quiet during other times of the day...especially early morning when I just do not want to bundle up and drag myself outside to deal with their barking irritant. During much of the year one hears birds chirping first thing, but for several years now I'm greeted first thing in the A.M. by a dog barking.
I'm doing this human training with my car alarm... My goal is to either get them to be responsible for their dog and thus become good neighbors...or just ruin their lives like they've done mine. This is a terrible attitude to have, usually I like to avoid childishness and confrontations, but I guess this comes from being driven batty.
A little detail here about my house and how it is situated in relation to the source of my unhappiness...I have a big, old 2 story house, with a long hallway down the middle of both levels and rooms off to each side of the hallways. Upstairs there are 4 bedrooms (2 on either side of the hallway), a bathroom and a small room off the back of one of the bedrooms that I used to call the Meditation Room... My bedroom of choice is the one in the back of the house, on Harley's side unfortunately, my favorite bedroom since I began living here 9-10 years ago...well, until Harley's arrival that is. The reason I chose this room is because I like the way the light streams in in the morning, it is connected to the bathroom, it is at back of the house so it does not get as much traffic noise as the bedrooms at the front of the house, and this side of the house used to be quieter than the other side. Downstairs we have 4 rooms (2 on either side of the hall), and in back there is the kitchen and the Cat Room, also know as a mud room, I think, but that's where the litter boxes and all the cat supplies are. We are planning on knocking part of a wall between this room and the kitchen to open it all up, making this room into a sort of breakfast nook area with French doors opening onto a screened in deck, but I've rather lost my zest for this idea since I won't be able to enjoy it as long as my neighbors continue to allow their dog to be an annoyance.
So, anyway, I've been sleeping in the living room for months now because it is the room farthest from Harley the Yapper, and it is downstairs so I can close all the doors into the rooms at the back of my house and on Harley's side of the house to block out more of the annoying yapping.
I've been living in the living room/dining room area, with the occasional trip to the kitchen, and bathroom...but only when absolutely necessary...and upstairs only to shower and dress. Nice, huh? Many thanks to my lovely neighbors for not only making me miserable by forcing me to hear their damn dog barking, but for also limiting the use of my big, lovely, 11 room plus 2 bathroom house to just 2 rooms! Love you too... heh heh heh... oh, and let's not forget the big 1 acre yard that I no longer care to labor over because I'm getting barked out of it like I'm an intruder... Weeds? Who gives a shit.
Well, Harley has been very quiet during the night (not sure why though) so last night I decided I'd had enough of this crap and decided to sleep in my favorite bedroom, in my favorite queen size bed for the first time in months. But knowning he always starts barking between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. and knowing I would want to lounge around since it had been so long since I slept in my bed, I set my key fob on the night stand, and as soon as Harley started barking this morning I set off my car alarm, and kept setting it off at intervals until Harley was quiet. I'm not sure if my neighbors got off their asses to shut him up or if he just got tired of barking on his own...
I hope Harley's humans are not too stupid to figure out what is going on here. I mean, even Harley learned very quickly what the handheld ultrasonic device and a sharp "quiet" means. Hopefully I won't have to use the garden hose on his humans before they pay attention.
