Dog Woes

Ugh I have horrible insomnia.  I actually went to bed early but R worked late and when he got home at 11 I woke and he mentioned that we'd gotten anonymous note from a neighbor complaining about Skipper's barking. 

The body of the letter says:

Please consider this a friendly reminder to please bring your dog inside.  The dog barks for extremely long periods of times, day and night.  The dog appears to be left out in the cold temperatures.  The dog can be heard in the Maymont Neighborhood.
Attached please find the Fairfax County Noise Ordnance statement.
Thank you for your cooperation.

Then they stapled a print out of the ordnance that says no barking from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.  And they took the time to highlight the pertinent parts in yellow highlighter.


Well first of all my dog spends most of his time on our couch.  He is not outside for long periods of time at all.  He is let in and out several times a day for maybe 2 to 10 minutes a pop,  and he does bark to let us know he wants to come in.  And sometimes I'm cooking or in the bathroom or something and don't come immediately.  It might take me a minute or two.

I don't think he is ever out between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. left to bark.  That might have happened a couple of times with R.  I  go to bed usually around 10.  He sometimes stays up and he'll let the dog out late and the dog might start barking.  But again he usually gets the dog pretty quickly.  And that situation only happens occasionally anyway.

I think what might have happened though is when V's friends were here, we had no good place to put the dog.  He does bark a lot.  It is annoying, so while we were entertaining them for like 2 meals a brunch and a dinner, the dog was outside for a while.  Maybe an hour each time?  And that was on a Sunday when people would be home.  Because honestly, hardly anyone ever seems to be home during the day in that neighborhood.

The problem is that our yard is on a hill over the pond which forms a little valley.  I've noticed sound really echoes.  So I think the noise just travels, especially in winter when there are no leaves on the trees to muffle it a bit.  Also, there are two other barking dogs along my side of the street.  Our next door neighbor also has a dog that barks at times, but during the day, I've never heard her bark at night.  And then two house down from them is a family that has a couple of dogs and sometimes they are out and barking as well.  So maybe this anonymous neighbor has lumped all the barking dogs together?  But our geographical position does make our dog's bark the most prominent and the most obvious.

However, given all this, the letter is an exaggeration.  It does not happen for 'extremely long periods of time.' It does not happen 'day and night.'  The dog is not left out in the cold temperatures.  What a lot of bosh.  And I am so pissed that they didn't sign their name or just come talk to us.  Now I'm going to be paranoid when I walk the dog. Who is peeking out there window, spying on me, hating me because of my annoying dog!

Maybe it is the same lady who was scratched by our cat last spring and called animal control on us.  Maybe she's out to get us.

Anyway, the truth is Skipper is a high strung, highly energetic dog, only 9 months and he has a loud, sharp, annoying bark.  It drives me nuts too.  It's been a rough winter.  He's young and hyper and has lots of bad puppy habits.  And it's been muddy or icy and hard to get him enough exercise to help him be calm. 

I think I'm going to have to get one of those sonic collars.  I have to be able to let him out in the backyard some times.  If he isn't allowed to bark to come in or the I'll get cited by some cowardly neighbor, then I have to do something.

I hate my neighbors.  They built ugly pretentious wasteful McMansions on a beautiful orchard.  I had to live with freaking construction noise for 10 years while those ugly homes were being built.  They never clean up their trash.  I walk the dog back there and these people who live in these million dollar homes can't be bothered to clean up the trash on their streets.  My dog has found a dirty menstrual napkin and a used condom on that street where this neighbor probably lives.  Just in the last couple of weeks.  How disgusting is that?  And that's not even mentioning the water bottles and plastic bags, etc I can see washing into the pond.  And they hardly come out of their homes anyway.  They all have their little home security signs out front and their pristine, overly landscaped lawns, yet you hardly ever seen anyone!  I've walked more in their neighborhood then they have!

Ok I am just being petty, but it is 2:58 a.m. and just for the record, my dog is not outside in the cold barking but asleep in his crate, as he has been since 10 p.m.