It kept going for almost 16 hours.
I spent most of yesterday (Sunday) in
our living room. Among the various things I did? A little working
out, reading a (an actual) newspaper, writing yet another article for
said newspaper, coming up with a few questions for “High School
Bowl”, putting the finishing touches on next week's big Kaufman
program, and, as the evening wore on, watching a little TV with
Loraine.
So it was a pretty good, if busy, day.
The one thing that accompanied me
throughout the day was the dog across the street. I don't know if
I've written about this before, but the people who live across the
street from us have a dog that does nothing but bark. I'm not
kidding. It barks at people walking by, it REALLY barks when there's
another dog present, and it fills the time between barking at people
walking by and people walking by with other dogs by, well, barking
some more.
In case you didn't get the idea, it
barks all the time.
I don't know if the people who own the
dog realize how much the dog barks, but I kinda get the idea they do.
After all, the dog would probably be kept inside if it was quiet,
right? Instead, it's put outside where the entire neighborhood gets
to enjoy its non-stop symphony. And lest you think it's just Jim,
who doesn't like dogs, complaining about the barking, rest assured
it's not. Four times in the past year the police have been called by
people other than me in the neighborhood about the noise the dogs
make. If you don't believe me, check the police log.
Yet the dog's owners keep putting it
out.
I woke up yesterday around 8 am, and
one of the first things I heard was the dog barking. Throughout the
day, as I did this and did that, one of the things I heard was the
dog barking. When Loraine came in to the living room to see if I was
still alive, the first thing she said was, and I quote, “The stupid
dog's barking again”. And when I decided to turn the TV off last
night around 10, what did I hear?
Yup. The dog barking. Fourteen hours
after I first heard it, it was still going. Just like it's done
every day for the past several years. There may have been times
yesterday when it was quiet, but if so, I didn't really notice them,
as they were far outnumbered by the times it was barking. You'd
think I'd get used to it, that it would become part of the background
noise of my neighborhood, like the firetrucks and drunk college
students, but nope. It stands out and it doesn't seem to go away.
I know I complain in here enough about
dogs, and I don't want to to it again. Like I always say, 95% off
dog owners are good people, responsible to both their pets and the
humans who live around them But it's the other 5 percent, like the
people who live across the street, that give all dog owners a bad
name. If your dog barks so much that you have to stick it outside
all day every day so you don't hear it, maybe you shouldn't have a
dog. If your dog barks so much that neighbors have to call the
police about the noise, yet you do nothing about it, maybe you
shouldn't have a dog.
Maybe if you lived in the country, with
no one around you, then it wouldn't matter if you had a dog that did
nothing but bark 14 hours a day. But when you live in a city
neighborhood, in fact one of the most densely packed neighborhoods in
a city, you might want to think twice about having a dog that does
nothing but bark 14 hours a day. You'd think four visits from the
police in a year might alert you to that fact, but in this
case...well, not so much.
That's how I spent my Sunday. It was a
good day, even with the soundtrack.
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