Barking Mad

Friday, November 02, 2007

The dog next door is barking and I cannot concentrate on what I'm writing. It has been barking since I got home at 6 tonight and it has barely stopped. It's a wonder that it hasn't passed out. It was barking yesterday when I got home from work, and the day before that and the day before that. It is constant and it has begun to eat at my patience because it has been doing this every day, all day for the past 2 months. Generally things like this don't bother me but this dog barked from the time I woke up on Saturday (8am) until the time I went to bed (12am) non-stop. Without exaggeration, the dog could not have been quiet for more than 10 minutes during the day.

If i yelled non-stop all day, every day for 2 months, I don't think I would have a voice left. Do dogs lose their voice? Is it possible for this dog to bark itself quiet? Maybe tomorrow the barking will sound a little hoarse, then the next day it will be faint, and the day after it will just sound a little like a frog is croaking nearby. Maybe I will look out the window and the dog will be lying down with a mug full of warm honey milk and a packet of soothers looking sad and sorry for itself.
Maybe it will go to the doctor/vet and the doctor/vet will tell him that if he keeps barking, he might lose his voice permanently. Maybe he will buy a laptop and decide that emailing and blogging is a much better substitute for barking himself stupid and he will quietly browse the internet all day long. Maybe he will realise that his barking is a result of his mother not loving him enough, or feeding him for long enough, or maybe he will realise it's because he is lonely and he will be happy because he has the internet on his laptop and he can join a doggy dating site so he never has to be alone again.

Maybe he will just be quiet so I can think some sane thoughts.

I have begun looking around the house every time it barks to see if I can find something sharp and at this stage I'm still not sure if the sharp object is for the dog or for my own ear drums. I'm pretty sure that a few more days of this and I will know the answer for sure.

2 comments:

Badaunt said...

Gawd, I do feel for you. We had a similar problem a few years ago, except that the dog did not so much bark as whine, moan, yip, howl, and whimper. It was never the same, and it never stopped. The poor thing was tied up on a short leash in the front of the house over the road from us, and did not let us sleep. The woman who owned it never took it for walks and never gave it any attention except from a safe distance, and when we complained she said she didn't hear it, so therefore we were making it up or exaggerating. Well of COURSE she couldn't hear it. It was in front of her garage, and her house was behind.

Finally we sent her a kind letter from the SPCA, with lots of information about how to take care of a dog properly and noting that this was a preliminary survey on how pets were treated in Japan (there is no SPCA here, actually) and that we'd be checking again in three months to see how things were progressing, in order to write our report. We managed to throw in a few famous names as well - I remember Prince Charles got a mention, as well as various members of the Japanese royal family. (As sponsors of our society, of course.)

It was like a miracle. Suddenly the dog was getting walked twice a day, cuddles occasionally, and ... it stopped its noise. We just wished we'd thought of it sooner.

I don't suppose that would work, there. Nobody would fall for it.

Badaunt said...

(Was that a long enough comment, do you think?)

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