The dog down the block

Our redneck neighbor's two doors down have a dog.

Why?

God only knows. They never play with it or walk it.

It basically lives in a 4'x6' kennel. Sure, they put up a half-ass piece plywood to try and block the dog's view of the alley, so as to keep it from barking incessantly.

But that never works.

When we got up this morning (7:32 - I remember the exact time because I was suppose to set the alarm from the normal 7:00 am to 6:50 am so Kristie could get up early for work but while I changed the minutes, I neglected to alter the hour, so poor Kristie had all of 28 minutes to get ready, grab breakfast, and make it to work), the dog was already barking a non-stop stream of noise.

I think of the Oland's, our poor neighbors right next door to the rednecks. I'd go nuts. Or slip the dog some hamburger doused with anti-freeze. But I could never hurt an animal. I could run the owners through a wood chipper no problem. But I couldn't hurt the dog. I've often thought about taking Dad's old bolt cutter to the kennel's wire. But then in typical ironic fashion, I'd goof up (probably leave the bolt cutter right in our garage or my trunk or leave fingerprints everywhere) and I'd get caught and have to buy a new kennel!

But I did capture this evidence as I was trying to get a picture of our finished patio.

I thought about timing him and seeing how many barks per minute he averages.


I finally had enough, and with Kristie's prompting, I called the police and issued a report. We'll see how much good it did. The dispatcher sounded about as awake as a stone. After I'd recited my tale and all the pertinent information, he gurgled, "Uh, let me get a pen."

Isn't he a dispatcher? I'd figure he'd be accustom to writing complaints and notices down.

He informed me that they would likely have to wait until the owners got home. Then he said he wasn't sure where to put the warning (I thought about telling him "how about up your freakin' ass so you wake up," but I figured that wouldn't go over too well). "The back door would suffice," I said, figuring that my response covered both what I had really wanted to tell him and what he needed to know in order to get the complaint to the owners.

However, the dog has ceased its cacophony. The police must have called. I thought the wife worked, but apparently not. She must have let the dog in. Why she couldn't hear it barking for that past two hours is beyond me. I mean how loud do you have to have the TV on not to hear that? But the soaps won't be on for another couple hours, so who knows what she was doing. Maybe she has just zoned it out.

Nope. She must work because the dog just piped up again. The dog is obviously more intelligent than the owners for it sensed I called the police on it! But it couldn't stay quiet for long.