No, I don’t hate dogs
It is pretty safe to write this story now as my neighbor moved over ten years ago and the last I heard they were living 2,000 miles away. I don’t think they will bother to come back and threaten me with violence.
Some people think I hate dogs. Not true I just hate some dog owners. Like the ones that take their dogs for a walk and leave their droppings in my yard. Or the people bringing their pooches into the grocery store claiming their mutt is a service dog. Or the lady driving with her puppy in her lap and hanging out the window. Or the couple with two large dogs living in a one-bedroom apartment. Seems to me people have lost their common sense.
I grew up with a dog as a pet/pal most of my childhood. We had a place big enough for large animals, so I always had a large dog as my companion. Nope, no special dog food for these guys just tables scraps and left overs most of the time or what they could chase down and catch. On rare occasions a rabbit or squirrel was provided or caught. The closest any of these pets got to a toy was a stick from a tree. We did not live in an apartment or a condominium or a single-family house with 30 sq. feet for a yard. Fortunately, we had acres. When I downsized I stopped having pets.
Anyway, my story. These pet owners had two lovely dogs that roamed their back yard all night. Their back yard was near my bedroom window. Each night these dogs would be roaming around and barking as creatures passed the fenced in yard. Usually a stray racoon, fox, deer etc would set them off. Now being a person that likes to sleep with his windows open you can easily see where this is going.
Yes, I talked to the neighbors and no that did not work. Their bedroom was on the other side of the house and they never heard the dogs. My only option was to call them in the middle of the night and say, “your dogs are barking”. I had to come up with a better idea.
At this time, I was working from home so in the daytime I would see those same dogs laying in the neighbors back yard sleeping peacefully. It made me want to run outside to their fence and start hollering. I knew the neighbors would be convinced I was nuts. I decided on a different strategy a few days later.
Rarely shopping can be an enlightening experience. It was when I got to Cabela’s a few days later. As I turned the corner to go down the aisle I noticed just the device I needed to get some sweet revenge. And I mean sweet as I was going to be able to get revenge on the dogs and the owners. I quickly bought it and went home to my office for the afternoon. The best part is it only cost about 6 bucks.
As the day wore on I noticed outside my office window the dogs had fallen asleep stretched out in the back yard. I slowly open my office window and engaged my weapon. In no time at all the dogs were up, running, barking and attempting to find the source of their discomfort. This continued for several minutes and then the neighbor came outside to quiet the dogs. Just when things would start to settle down and the neighbor would start back towards their house I would unlease the weapon again. More running, barking, howling etc. After about four more episodes like this I would stop using the weapons. At least stop for a few minutes until the puppies went back to sleep. Then engage again.
It took about three weeks before the dogs got so tired during the day that they slept at night.
Lesson learned – Sometimes the silent treatment is the best. I used a silent dog whistle to pester the dogs and no one ever figured out why the dogs were going crazy during the day.