Hank Hughes. You know, that giant yellow lab of ours? The biggest lover in the world. Well Saturday night we received a text message from our neighbor stating that the cops were at our house and shinning their flashlights inside my car.
Let's set the scene shall we? I live in a town with a population of 3000. 3000! We have a police department with about 5 deputies. We don't have a lot of crime, most of the calls are for drunk drivers that are driving on the highway that cuts through the middle of town. We are surrounded by farms and it is a quiet town.
So while we are driving home and receive this text we call the police department and see what is going on. If there was a conflict or something wrong with our house we wanted them to be there with us when we arrived home, since we had Caleb and all. We were informed that an officer would meet us at our house to discuss the issue at hand.
We show up and so did the cops. We find out that they were there because they received complaints about Hank's barking. WHAT?!? Seriously?
About 3 weeks ago we received an anonymous note on our door stating that Hank's barking was waking their children up too early and we needed to take care of it. We talked to both of our direct neighbors and neither of them claimed the note. We talked it over and decided that we would try to do something about it, but we have to go to work.
Now, 3 weeks later, after no other forms of communication, we have the cops at our house warning us about our dog. To say we were upset is an understatement.
Now let me explain. I understand that barking dogs are annoying. Trust me, we don't want Hank barking either. But we are pretty sure we know what is happening. I leave for work Tuesday - Friday between 5:15 and 5:30. I put Hank out in the backyard with his breakfast, water and toys - a.k.a our backyard because he is still a puppy and is chewing and digging right now. Our neighbors put their two Boston Terriers outside to go potty around 5:45 and I assume that the doggies say "Good morning!" to each other. We assume that this sets another neighboring dog off and that dog starts to bark, but that dog is inside their owners' room and not outside, thus waking them up.
I don't understand how this is a major crime? Aren't there bigger issues that the police should be looking into? Apparently not in our small quiet town.
We were then held to a 20 minute conversation about how we need to do the following to stop him from barking:
||remove the dog from the residence - because he is just a piece of trash that we can move around as we please
||get a bark collar - because we never want him to bark to protect us
||kennel him - because I would love for him to get a bladder infection after being in his kennel for 10 hours 4 days a week
||leave him inside my house - because I don't value any of the things inside my house that he will destroy from boredom
||let him out later in the day - because I just put him out at 5:30 for shits and giggles
||MOVE - because everyone has a disposable income that makes this a possibility
All of their suggestions made me 100 shades of red I'm sure, but they are ridiculous. I'm sorry officer, but are your pets not part of your family? Would you just send your pets away? And better than that, I own my house. I pay property taxes and help pay your salary, these complainers are renters - if it's who we think it is - and they can move if they don't like it.
I don't understand people. I understand that you have a problem with my dog. But did you really think it was at the point where you needed to call the police on us? I have so many emotions about it.
It must be nice that you don't have to get up and go to work this early.
I am pretty sure that it is your dog that has the barking problem, not my dog.
We live by train tracks, you can sleep through that but not a barking dog?
You left an anonymous note and never came and talked to us yourselves, how old are you?
We have come up with a solution and it makes Ryan angry that he feels as though these jerks are winning. But when we are getting threatened that Hank will be taken by the Animal Control - which just try and take my dog, I will fight you on that one - we have to figure out something.
We are lucky enough to have one neighbor who is awesome and her oldest daughter has offered to come let Hank out later in the morning after the kids are all in school. Today will be the first day of this and if it doesn't work then everyone else can just suck it.
We are trying. We don't want our neighbors to hate us but Hank is part of our family and he isn't going anywhere.
So for now, we have a law breaker living with us. Poor Yellow! ::his nickname most days::
Stop it. People are such jerks!! Dogs bark- it's a thing that happens. And your neighbors should just get over it. Hopefully having your neighbor's daughter taking him out later will help!! Sorry you had to deal with that :(
ReplyDeleteThat is INSANE! We had our neighbor directly across the hall leave her large (husky and some other big dog mix) dog alone for a whole week once. Her mom came to let him out twice a day. He had major separation anxiety and flipped out basically all day long but we never called the cops. Heck, we never called our building manager because there was really nothing we could do about it. At least yall have a valid reason for putting him outside and honestly, dogs set each other off all the time. Not your fault and not your problem. People are so rude!
ReplyDeleteRAWR! I dislike people like this so much. Unless the dog is barking nonstop 24-7 get over it. I hope they pull their heads out their butts and leave poor yellow alone! He just likes to talk with his neighbor friends.
ReplyDeleteRAGE! This makes me so mad! The fact that they couldn't just talk to you, have a conversation, open up communication....your poor fur baby!
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