The chili gambit is delightfully diabolical, and a lot more humane than putting out a dish full of antifreeze, which I’ve heard would kill the poor animal.
Indeed, just as it’s amazing what a bit of community service or even jailtime can do for a person’s manners. Intentionally and needlessly inflicting pain or suffering on an animal is a felony in many jurisdictions, including my own state; it’s also a bastardly thing to do, but that gets beyond General Questions.
Daniel
I second the “Chili Mandate”.
These devices are electronic ultrasonic generators. They turn on when a dog (in range) barks, turn off when it stops. Very effective. A friend had one and cured the neighbor’s dog of incessant nite time barking.
Full information is to be found here:
Mount it under the eaves or anywhere outdoors sheltered from rain, point toward dog’s usual spot.
Unless your dog has a mental problem it shouldn’t bark unless someone is coming onto your property. A properly trained dog will only bark when people come onto the property, sometimes only the front porch. A smart dog that is properly trained will only bark at people who come on to the property and are uninvited (I’ve had dogs that can distinguish.)
Dogs aren’t just “supposed” to bark for long periods of time when nothing is wrong. I’ve successfully trained many different types of dogs in my life to be good watchdogs. And a good watchdog only barks when something is actually happening, a dog that barks at all times is worthless as a watch dog.
Problems like this are why if I lived in a close-neighborhood type environment I would probably live in a suburb that had a ban on dogs (though they are hard to find.) Despite being a dog lover the abundance of bad dog owners makes these wonderful creatures incredibly annoying beasts in the hands of many owners.
As for the ludicrous claim that the police will always respond to your complaints about dogs barking, that is flatly wrong. I know from personal experience police departments often don’t respond to calls based on reasons I can’t imagine. Sure, it may even be illegal, but I know they do it from personal experience.
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- The bit about “cracking them on the head” was only if it was my dog that was disobedient. I doubt it would help at all for someone else’s dog. Dogs are smart enough to know to follow orders if their’s a painful consequence, but they are also smart enough to know who deals the shit out. This is why very often you will see a dog that lives with a couple of people, and the dog is very obedient to one of the people but not the other. Because only one person is pounding it when it does something bad.
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- In the last few years the main reasons I’ve seen that dogs barked constantly was that they were basically lonely. The owners made sure the dogs had food and water and shelter, but were rarely around at all otherwise and rarely spent any time at all walking or playing with the dogs. And that’s a bummer in a way, but it’s not your fault they took on a dog they really don’t have the time for. And it doesn’t mean you should have to suffer for it.
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Wow, that’s a grievous misunderstanding of dog psychology. Dogs are pack creatures and fairly hierarchical; the family dog knows exactly where it stands in the pack, even if the humans in the pack don’t know.
One way that a human can put himself on the top of the pack–but only one way–is to beat the dog. The dog learns that his pack expresses hierarchies through physical punishment, and that it’s receiving more physical punishment than it’s dealing out, so it’s not at the top of the pack. This can work; it can also lead the dog to maul someone when it decides it’s time to make its own move for pack leadership.
Another way to establish dominance–but only one way–is to require the dog to do a trick for you before it gets any sort of reward from you, whether it’s food, a walk, a rub on the belly, a favorite toy, or whatever. This technique doesn’t emphasize violence, so it ends up creating a calmer, less dangerous dog; it’s also something that the smaller people in the house can participate in, so that the dog learns that everyone in the pack is superior to it. Which is what you need a family dog to learn.
Felony animal cruelty statutes do not, in my experience, make an exception that allows you to inflict needless suffering on your own pets.
Daniel
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- So tell me, what tricks do dogs make each other do in the wild?
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- So tell me, what tricks do dogs make each other do in the wild?
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If you think that’s a relevant question, you misunderstood my post, especially the sections that I bolded to make sure that people would read them.
Daniel
Many years ago in the dark of night, I heard this plaintive howling coming from the German Short Haired Pointer next door. It kept up so much that I went over to see what the trouble was. I had trepidations because this was a somewhat sullen creature who wasn’t fond of me (or anyone else, it seemed).
Although it was almost pitch black, I could see that the dog was tied to an outdoor faucet, with no more than two inches of play in the leash. The poor guy’s face was just about up against the back wall of the house.
Knowing the family, it didn’t take a genius to realize that the dog had done something to rile the teenager in the household who then lashed the animal to the faucet and went off to do drugs.
I untied the dog rather gingerly, fully expecting to get bitten, but no, he was so appreciative, he followed me home and spent the night in our den.
Sometimes, even though the family has long since moved away, I still regret that I didn’t shoot that sadistic teenage sonofabitch.
My neighbors have 2 large boxers who are kept in an area 8’ by 4’, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This enclosure is between their house and mine, about 4’ from my bedroom. The dogs cannot see the sidewalk in front of our houses but they can hear people passing. They bark at these people. Often. It makes me very angry when it’s at 2:00 a.m. as the bars are closing, but I am not mad at the dogs. I am mad at the neighbors. I have called Animal Control and the Humane Society, but keeping your dogs caged is not illegal unless they don’t have water, food or shade. So, what to do?
I could call the neighbors on the phone at 2 am to tell them to shut up the dogs, but a) the neighbors can hear them too, and b) if I do that they go out and beat the dogs and shout at them. This doesn’t help my blood pressure any.
Or, I could call the cops. I live in LA. The cops are too busy for this sort of thing. Think how I would feel if someone got murdered and I had the cops over here listening to dogs bark. So, I too had wondered if these devices worked or not, and Spingears seems to think they do. Then again, what if someone breaks into the yard? Then, we would like them to bark.
Final thought is that I might try the device anyway. The people on the other side of us have a German Shepherd which they have (imagine this?) trained to bark only when strangers come in. So if we have a burglar, perhaps that dog would let us know…
KayT,
If you’re concerned about trespassers, you have the most wonderful excuse in the world to get your own dog.
I’ll bet those other neighbors with the German Shephers would be happy to tell you how to train your dog to bark only when strangers come on your property.
I would kill to have my own dog, but the victim would have to be Mrs. Antiochus, because when it comes to having a dog, she says “…over my dead body.”
but true
One way you might be able to get the police out is to keep a barking log. If you’ve got a tape recorder, even better: whenever the dogs wake you up, hit record, mutter the datea nd time into the recorder, and hold it to the window for a minute or two. Keep a written log of when the barking occurs. And then approach the police with it during regular business hours.
This isn’t guaranteed to work, but the police/animal control love it when you do some of their legwork for them–and most police/AC departments can’t afford to have SWAT teams patrolling neighborhoods at 2 am listening for barking dogs, anyway.
Daniel
This is a good thought on the surface, Daniel, but it doesn’t work in my town.
Cops here tell you flat out that barking dogs are not in their job description. (I’d have used “purview” but but our cops, only know "We can’t < fill in the blank >.)
Anyway, rather than get off their dead asses and on ther darn feet, the cops next tell us to contact Animal Control. And if I remember correclty Animal Control told me tape recordings are useless. “Keep a 3-day log with paper and pen — of the date, time barking started and when it ended.”
So the chili maneuver remains in my mind as the perfect solution.
My problem is the Pit Bull owning woman of the house is home all day. So, I’d have to wear a Ghillie Suit (http://www.ghilliesuits.com/)and lie close to the fence for hours, with wire cutters (camouflaged, of course), to open a hole at the base of the fence and a ghillied dish overflowing with chili. When the time is right, I’d do the deed, recover the empty dish, and slink away a centimeter at a time, undetected in the twilight.
The next morning I’d get up early to enjoy the screams coming from the house next door in which the carpets are now wall to wall with worst smelling dog shit on the planet.
Being a fearless hero is hard work, but it has its rewards. 
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- The thing about calling animal control for anything is that in my area, if the dog appears to be a bull terrier mix (“pit bull”), then being taken IS a death sentence–as they will not release pit bull mixes for adoption, at all. If they get it, it’s worm food. They have had too many problems with them in the past.
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- Well see here’s the thing: how would they tell? The animal in general is not going to be afraid of you, and it won’t have any evidence of repeated physical abuse–because if you’re only disciplining it when needed, it won’t happen more than a few times, and from then on will be a very rare occurance. So in the event the law gets involved, you’re down to probably one incident where someone else says you did something bad. WIth all the stories here about how animal control is busy with other things and the cops don’t give a shit, it’s very doubtful that either would act on one single report of mistreatment–especially one where there’s basically no evidence.
- And anyway–you didn’t see me post the bit about “dishful of antifreeze”…
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I’m of the opinion that you shouldn’t violate animal cruelty statutes even when you won’t get caught. Nor should you advocate doing so.
But yeah, depending on your jurisdiction, a single incident may get you community service, and you may be able to avoid jail time only by agreeing not to own any animals in the jurisdiction ever again.
Daniel
- And anyway–you didn’t see me post the bit about “dishful of antifreeze” DougC
Only because you didn’t think of it. 
Ick. That’s not fair. DougC may believe it’s okay to hit a dog, which I disagree with (except in extremis), and he may advocate committing a particularly disgusting form of vandalism as a substitute for pursuing legal recourse, and it might even be that he believes violence is the most effective form of dog-training, but he’s never advocated lethally poisoning a dog.
Daniel
Did you notice the grinning emotican, Dork? It was a joke.
Chill out, all of you.
I noticed, Anti. It was unfunny and in poor taste to accuse him of advocating poisoning dogs.
Daniel