Unfortunately, I can't blame this crappy miasma on the star of this blog, Harley, the barking pest. Although Harley's humans are remiss when it comes to teaching their dogs good social skills, they do keep their yard clean. This actually makes sense because the reason Harley was kicked out of the house in the first place, and thus in his yard ruining my life, was because he was crapping all over the house, and so to avoid having dog shit tracked into the house they scoop and dispose if it in the trash. This still doesn't make up for the barking, however.
More seriously unfortunate, though, are the folks who live behind me who are not so conscientious about their dog crap.
Allow me to give a little history here: back in December '09 the lovely folks who live behind me tied out 3 dogs in their yard (like Christmas week). Yes, chained 'em up, right by the row of cypress trees that divides our properties, way in the back corner of their yard... The dogs, puppies really, had hardly any shelter and upon finding them shivering in the snow one morning I couldn't stand it and went about collecting proper dog houses for them (via a plea on craigslist). Of course, lucky me, when the dogs saw me in my backyard they barked at me, so along with the dog houses I brought treats and I also feed them when it appears they have missed a meal...or two. Well, this has paid off as now the dogs do not bark when they see me (in fact they do not bark all that much, usually, and neglected as they are they have a much better reason to be barking than that idiot, Harley, does).
However, along with neglecting the actual dogs, these lovely neighbors also neglect to clean up the dog crap. Oh, I forgot to mention they are now down to 2 dogs because they called the Animal Control on one of their dogs because she bit the oldest son (who, quite honestly, probably deserved it), and the dog is probably dead now, having been taken to the shelter for biting and most likely killed in the county's gas chamber. In this picture is the condemned dog. One day she was there, the next day she was gone and never came back. Despite the fact that I'm really and literally sick and tired of dealing with all of my negligent neighbors' dogs, I was really sad about this and if I had known about it at the time I would have called one of my crazy animal rescue friends as they never would have allowed the dog to go to the shelter to be killed. She was actually a good girl and, I thought, cute. Someone, but definitely not my neighbors, had taught her some manners and she would sit on command, and she never, ever, gave me any indication of being aggressive or vicious. In fact, these folks told me to watch out for the brown & white dog in the photo below because he bites, but he, again, has never tried to bite me nor has he given any indication of being aggressive (yet). In fact, all these dogs seem to like me really well and start wagging their tails when they see me... sigh... it's so sad, really.
But anyway, the dogs now have real dog houses, complete with straw beds inside, thanks to some concerned folks on craigslist and my friend Terry. They are still tied up and neglected by their owners, so I'm not really sure how good I should actually feel about doing this though.
So, I must now admit to being remiss myself, as when I was over there with my friend Terry, who was kind enough to bring over a free dog house, I noticed piles of dog shit all around the dogs and then later noticed that the kid had just raked it all up into a large pile at the back corner of the yard, and at the time I failed to say anything about properly disposing of it in the trash, and so now I'm suffering the olfactory consequences of my own negligence. In my defense, I was raised to clean up after the dog (yes, we had a dog when I was a kid) and so I just find it baffling that people leave dog crap laying around their yards (not to mention let their dogs bark like psychos for hours and hours...). Mom never would have allowed this when I was a kid.
So, now 3 of my senses are being abused by my negligent neighbors and their dogs: visual (seeing the dogs suffering), auditory (hearing them bark), and olfactory (smelling their shit).
Did I say yet that, even though I do like a nice well-behaved dog, the only reason I don't actually have a dog myself is because I'm too lazy to train it, take it for walks, and clean up after it? Sigh. I must have really bad karma.
So now I have to say something to these neighbors behind me about the rank aroma in the air which originates from their dogs' B-holes, and further risk making a nuisance of myself and provoking yet more neighborly animosity. I'll keep it simple:
"Hello! As the weather has warmed up I can now smell dog poop as soon as I open my back door, not only in my yard but also in my house if I wish to open my doors and windows on a nice day. This odor is very nauseating, not to mention it is very unhygienic to leave dog poop laying about the yard, and so I'd appreciate it if you would make sure the dogs' poop is disposed of properly in the trash rather than being raked up into a pile in the corner of the yard. Thank you! Sincerely..."
Yeah, there's no remaining anonymous here. They know me alright. All of the negligent dog owner's around here know me.
One last thing: I find it rather ironic that all the neighbors hate me since I am the one who has the best manicured yard with pretty & fragrant flowers, I'm very quiet, I'm always picking up trash that blows in or falls out of neighboring trash cans (that everyone else seems to overlook), I don't have a lot of cars parked on my place, nor people coming & going, and I keep my cats either inside or contained in their own yard (and my cats, other than the occasional meow and/or purr, don't make any noise).
