For some excellent advice on how to handle noisy neighbors with or without a barking dog, including the anonymous letter approach, click here:
How to Handle Noisy Neighbors and Their Barking Dogs
If you are a victim of irresponsible dog owners with barking dogs, visit BarkingDogs.net
If you live in Monroe/Union County, NC also see Ordinances and Local Contacts
If you are in a position (e.g., judge, magistrate, law enforcement, city council, county commissioner, etc.) to put an end to nuisance dog barking or to enforce noise nuisance laws but don't view the problem as serious, click here: Why Exposure to Chronic Dog Barking is So Profoundly Debilitating and here: The Deleterious Effect of Exposing People to Noise

Monday, May 10, 2010

The Good, the Bad, and the Absurd...

First the good news: I've purchased 500 ft. of Purr...fect Fence so my cat will have a safe enclosure from which he can't escape and so he can hunt, pee, spray, lounge...whatever he wants... outside and I don't have to worry about Mrs. Barking Sociopath trapping him and sending him to the shelter;

The bad news is: The 5 Purrfect Fence kits, plus 2 gates with 2 gate extensions so I can get the riding mower in and out costs just under $3700 which is now on the credit card, but...

More good news is: I probably won't use all 5 Purrfect Fence kits because I want all areas within the enclosure to be within my field of view from the house, but I bought that many because doing so considerably reduced the cost of each individual kit, so I can sell 1 or 2 and recoup some money, and...

Now for the absurd, or what some people might consider the funny stuff (no, unfortunately, not the green leafy kind): Actually it's frightening, not funny at all. One might even concluded that evolution has suddenly changed the definition of the fittest and has begun to allow mentally incompetent folks to thrive and survive, as my barking dog neighbors certainly seem to be doing a better job of surviving than I am even though, at my worst, I possess a much higher degree of intelligence and am in much better physical condition, even while suffering from nerve damage and who knows what all due to barking noise trauma. But anyway, these are some of the things my sociopath barking dog owner neighbors have said to me (and my comments are, of course, in blue):


  • “Well, if you quit hanging around outside the dog wouldn’t be barking.” (What. Quit hanging around in my own yard?)
  • “You probably let the cat out.” (It was 6:15 a.m. and actually the lucky cat had slept through the barking fit and was still on the bed. Maybe she thought I let the cat out to instigate a barking riot to wake myself up from a deep sleep so I could drag my ragged ass outside to put an end to the barking because I had nothing better to do?)
  • “He’s probably barking at the cat.” (The cat was inside…again. Damn that cat. He’s never outside when he’s guilty of instigating a barking riot)
  • “Where’s the cat?” (Good grief. Can’t they come up with something new?)
  • “Those other dogs are barking.” (At least they are getting creative and didn’t blame the cat this time)
  • “Don’t you have insulation in your house?” (Yeah, this is what I'm dealing with. This is one of those statements that kind of left me speechless and with my mouth hanging open. Did this mean that, if we didn't have insulation...cripes, I still don't know WTF to say about this one. Even knowing these idiots, this one took me completely by surprise)
  • “I can’t hear any barking.” (Now I'd be really worried about that, because we can hear the barking in every room of our house, even my neighbors on the other side of me can hear it in their house, and the pastor of the church on the corner can hear it all the way at the side entrance to his church, and even the little old lady living through the woods in back who kept saying "what?" when I was talking to her can hear this same barking, not to mention people for blocks around can also hear it)
  • “Dogs bark.” (Of course, the good old stand-by stupid "duh" remark. This is a very condescending remark, and when someone says this you know you are talking to a person who has a nuisance barking dog and/or who thinks that everyone just has to put up with it because, after all, it's a dog, and if the barking is ruining your life it's your own fault. Yeah, yeah, dogs bark but enough is enough)
  • “Why don’t you go to the doctor for your headache?” (I have no idea where this came from. Maybe she figured that the barking must have given me a headache, which proves she knows how obnoxious the barking really is. But I didn’t have a headache when she said that to me, and even if I did how the hell would she know?) 
  • "You hurt my dog. You were yelling at him." Sigh. (Actually, it was 6:15 a.m. and I was yelling at the humans to shut the dog up. an exercise in futility, to be sure. And since I complained about being awakened by the barking she threatened to trap my cat and send him to the shelter. That'll teach me.)
I hope nothing that stupid has ever been produced by my brain and then even worse, gone beyond my lips. I'm almost positive it hasn't... but you know how you sometimes have a slight lingering doubt about a thing, which can be somewhat secretly embarrassing? Because if I ever said anything like what my barking dog owner neighbors have said to me, I'd be really embarrassed.

Peace, kiddies. Hopefully, anyway.