Cops Called

Pomeranian Puppy Threatened With Arrest For Crimes Against Old People.

These days you can tell when I've got something to do that I don't really want to do, that's about the time that I will suddenly be overcome with the urge to update the ole bloggymajiggy. My personal motivations are not really important though, what matters is I am here now, and ready to talk bad about my neighbors.

Why just the other day I was telling someone, wow, the mean neighbors have been away since before Christmas, it's so nice not to be constantly under their watchful eye, and scrutiny. I must have spoke too soon because about 20 minutes later, it seemed like, they pulled up in their driveway, and the staring immediately commenced.

It only took a few days for all of the tension to build up again. It's my dogs you see. They HATE my dogs. And my dogs hate just about everyone, unless they come through the front door, then the furry beasts will try to lick them to death, and even have the nerve to jump completely uninvited on every visitor's lap.

So here's what happened, and I'm going to state right up front that I was pretty much at fault here, but I still don't like those people. They are not nice people. In my own defense though, these people have driven me to it. They are obviously retired and have nothing better to do than stare across the street at my dogs all the live long day. We are very aware of this and are constantly on guard whenever we let our dogs outside because one little bark, or series of barks is just TOO much, and our neighbors will view us with scorn.

We have really tried to make sure we don't let the dogs out during prime barking hours such as when thousands of children are walking to and from school. This has cut down the barking. Basically, my dogs don't really bark unless they SEE something to bark at, like people, or other dogs walking by, although I think the little one, the puppy, has a thing for barking at buses and big trucks.

Anyway, I'm very careful during the day as we do get a lot of foot traffic by our fence. It's in and out, in and out all darn day. My back door is wearing out from so much in and out, but I can't just leave them out or Miss Thing will call the authorities on us the second their barking goes unchecked. Fine. As soon as we hear them bark we call them in, even if we are in the middle of something, say sitting on the pot.

At night I have been a lot more relaxed about them going outside because there are not as many things for them to bark at going on. Pumpkin the baby pom pom loves to be out at night. He has that thick coat and being out in the brisk cold seems refreshing for him. I call him and call him, and he just continues to wander around the yard avoiding coming inside. He's generally quiet, so I leave him be, and sometimes I forget he is out there, and when I remember I run to the door, and he comes running all fluffy, frisky and energized from the cold.

Well the other night I forgot Pumpkin was out, I had tried to call him in, but he wasn't ready to come in. Sure, I could have bothered to find socks and shoes and a coat and gone out to get him, but he seemed fine, and I figured he wouldn't make too much noise with the two big dogs inside. I worry sometimes about leaving him out because the little rogue has figured out how to slip out of the fence and has been known to run up the street on at least two occasions. We keep "fixing" the problem, and he hasn't go out for quite a while.

He was so quiet I forgot he was outside. But around 11:30 pm officer friendly showed up at my door. I saw her walk by our front windows, and I thought, "Oh crap, who's in trouble?" because with our families you sometimes just assume they are coming about one of our relatives. I jumped up and went to the door, and she said, "You need to get your little dog he's out and barking and disturbing the neighbors" My first thought was, oh crap, he got out of the yard and is running amok in the neighborhood, so I started to go outside, but she corrected me, and informed me, "He's in the back yard, you need to get him in or I will have to give you a ticket for noise something or other." I said, "yes, I'll get him in."

But then I did something you are never supposed to do with modern law enforcement. I sort of argued with her, I wasn't rude, I just offered my side of the story. I'm lucky I wasn't tased for my insolence. Anyway, she informed me that he's been barking for two hours STRAIGHT, which I immediately gaffed off as ridiculous. He's never barked for two hours straight at anything. Then she said, "well it's late, and he's barking, are you going to get him in or not?" I said, "yes, I'm going to get him in, but I find it funny that I could not hear his barking all this time." She said, "well, I could hear him barking at me when I pulled up to your house."

Wow, a dog barking at a strange car pulling up to it's house, how very strange. Anyway, there really was no sense in arguing it, he was out, someone called the police and that's that. At least she didn't give me a ticket. I tried to explain to her that my neighbors are constantly scrutinizing our dogs every move, but she didn't care. Overall she acted like she was really put out to even be standing on my doorstep. We ended our "conversation" and I went to get the little puff ball inside. End of story.

After I let him in, I noticed that my t.v. was rather loud. Perhaps that is why I did not hear him barking outside, or I might possibly be going hard of hearing. Anyway, it was our mistake, and we won't make it again. It completely slipped my mind how late it was, we now have a strict rule that the dogs can't go out after 10pm. I'm sure the whole thing did nothing but raise the hate directed towards us from the retirees across the street.

There are dogs all around us, I hear them barking all the time. The other day I woke up from a leisurely afternoon nap to dogs barking their heads off. I looked around and saw my fat beasts were all snoring softly beside me. I know it wasn't my dogs, but who is to say they won't get blamed for it. I honestly believe that every time a dog barks in this neighborhood mine get the blame for it because they are the most visible.

My neighbor's behind me have 4 dogs! They bark at my dogs through the fence, although to hear her tell it, it's my dogs that MAKE her dogs bark. Now the neighbors behind us are friendly towards us, and they know what we've been going through with those people across the street, but she blamed my dogs for hers barking...and said, "your dogs bark at mine at the fence, and now I have to leave my dogs inside all day..." Umm, your dogs bark at mine was my response.

Anyway, I hate all this discontent. I really do try to keep the neighbors happy, but there comes a point when you just can't make some people happy. There comes a point when people are just harrassing for the hell of it, because they can.

I did find out that the retiree couple don't own that home, in fact, they only live here during our warmer months for the most part. That explains all the peace we had while they were gone. The good news is, as renters they are likely to move at some point.

Since the "incident" we have really been on our toes even more than we already were, but somehow I don't think anything we ever do will be enough to appease those people. It's a wonder I haven't stopped trying at all. Oh well, just another day in the neighborhood.