My mother spent a month in her aunt’s farm when she was 4. There was no WC and the outhouse was the whooooole wide world, but mostly the chickens’ pen. She was terrified of pooing* because the chickens would flock over before she was even finished.
This term is appropiate because she was 4.
My aunt has a little Chinese dog which didn’t know me. When we went to visit last week, the dog kept barking; Aunt kept saying “Clara, SHUSH!” and trying to pull her back… once I was able to give the dog my hand to sniff (well, she licked it), she shut up. Aunt’s had dogs for 40 years, how come she still doesn’t know how to introduce dogs to people?
I’ve got a couple of neighbors whose dogs bark incessantly from time to time. But I don’t complain - for one thing, they’re incredibly nice people who genuinely love their dogs and do care for them (it’s not like the barking happens every day).
For another, my twins sometimes make a huge ruckus when they’re outside playing, so I figure turnabout’s fair play. Plus I know they can hear my stereo now and then.
I also think dogs in the neighborhood are a great deterrent to criminals and lurkers.
What’s really neat is when the coyotes start howling, off in the distance. Sends a shiver down my spine.
We have neighbors whose 3 little “dustmops with legs” whine all day. And she’s a stay-home Mom.
The only time anyone interacts with thes poor beasts, other than to throw a little food and water their way is when one of them escapes and they haul it back home.
I always root for the poor pooch to get away clean. If asked if I’ve seen one or more escapees–and of course I have–I lie.
These dogs seem to sense that we dote on our cats and ferrets, and our yard is the first they’ll come to looking for a head scritch and a goody. I’d sneak one in and adopt if not for an extreme dog-hater among my cats.
Kinda relevant - we were walking D yesterday (off leash, as usual), through an area that was behind a neighbor/friend’s house. S, her chocolate lab was tied up on her deck, and started barking at D. We have watched each others’ dogs in the past, and they are friendly with each other, altho D is much older and less interested in him than vice versa.
The neighbor came out and said “hi,” and told S to sit. We asked if it was alright if we came up and said hi to her and S. She said, “Sure, just give me a minute.” And she proceeded to take maybe 2 minutes commanding S to sit calmly before telling us to come on up.
When we came to the deck, S started to get a bit excited, so she made him lie down. Maybe 2 minutes later we were all hanging out on her deck, and I was petting S as he laid calmly.
Our neighbor sorta apologized for taking the time to discipline her dog. We said it was what we expected, and wished more dog owners would do. She observed that she had to teach S to behave and listen to her, as he weighs 80 pounds and could pretty much tug her off her feet. He was a rescue dog, and was overweight and quite rambunctious when she got him. She has done wonders with him over the past couple of years.
She commented that many people - dog owners and not - would say she was being “mean” when she was calming S down, instead of just letting him off his lead where he would run after D. The fact that so many people would say so, goes to your premise that so many people have no business owning dogs.
BTW - the neighbors immediately to my north are the assholes who just let their dog bark. Of course, there are plenty of other reasons to dislike those jerks …
Precisely. Dogs are pack animals that have evolved as domesticated companions with humanity for tens of thousands of years, probably because humans are pack animals too. Pack animals establish dominance by finding out what they can and can’t get away with within a group and then they keep doing it, and whoever doesn’t lay down order and discipline will cease to be alpha dog in their eyes. Do it long enough and a dog will not only lose respect for you, but also resent and disobey when you try to assume control without having established your alpha status. The degree to which dog owners don’t quite have a grasp on that is pretty pathetic. Those are the dogs that take their humans for a walk, rather than the other way around.
Now you see, a cat doesn’t understand ANY of this nonsense … alpha status is non-negotiable in the feline social ladder.
I just read several of John Katz’s books. While I certainly don’t agree with everything he says, I think his books contain some good stuff about dogs and dog-ownership.
One thing he mentions often is some guy whose theory is “Never give a dog anything for free.” For example, when he pours food in the bowl, he makes his dog do a stay/sit for a moment before releasing him to eat. I think there is something to that, tho I’m personally not disciplined enough to do that.
My old bitch is 10, and pretty much does whatever I want inside or out without being told. She basically knows what I don’t want her to do, and so long as she doesn’t do that, I’ll give her pretty free reign.
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been just giving her a couple of commands most days. Just sit/stay kind of thing. Thinking, if nothing else, I wanted to keep us both from just falling into routine, and see if it kept her aging brain young. Was happy to see how readily she responded, even tho you could almost see her looking up at me and asking, “Come on, why are you making me do this? I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”
At least I got my dog to a pretty good point before I stopped “ongoing” training. I think very few people realize how regularly you have to work at it for how many years.
My most frequent command is probably “Hey!” Whenever she looks like she is going to do something I don’t want her to do - getting too close to the street, too near a pedestrian or other dog, eating something I don’t want her to, scratching too much - I just say “Hey” and she pretty reliably realizes that she’s doing something I don’t want her to do, and stops. Along with “No”, “Come here”, and “Move” that pretty much accomplishes just about everything I need/want her to do.
My neighbors must have hated me last night. I left both dogs out on the porch so I could answer the door without them running out and/or jumping on the trick or treaters. Every child that passed by their view got them excited. They barked non stop for two hours until I finally had to shut off the light to other children coming to shut them the hell up.
They are both house dogs so I don’t usually have to worry about the neighbors being disturbed normally so I hope they forgive me.
I’m a dog owner, and I’m with you, anamnesis. I think the same kinds of jerks who raise jerky kids also (or who, instead of raising jerky kids) raise jerky dogs. 30% nature, 70% nurture. There was a dog 2 doors down who would bark every…eight…seconds…non…stop…for…the…whole day…starting…at…6…a.m…and then it died. And I was glad. Real glad.
I like dogs just fine, but if I had the money, I would live on a big piece of property where I could never hear another dog bark again.
When I had two little dogs, I always went to see what they were up to if they barked for more than a few minutes and never let them go on for long. I wish our neighbors would do the same.
One of my neighbors has a couple of acres, so there is lots of room for his three dogs to run and explore. Most of our property line is grown up with bushes and such, so we can’t see into each others property for most of its length. But sometimes they pen the dogs up and the pen is father back and against my fence.
Even though the pen is open on all sides, and they have plenty to look at all around, they sit watching over into my property when penned up. If I walk out of my house into their view, even though I am 400 feet away, they will bark non-stop until I have disappeared from view for a while.
I run the AC/heater blower at night to drown out the neighborhood dogs barking at night because many of them go on for hours. If it iritates me, inside my house, windows closed and 600 feet or more away, I can imagine how it must grate on the people that live right next to them. Yet no one seems to mind because it has been this way for years.
My sister (who loves any and all pets) actually went to the back-door neighbors to ask them to give her their golden retriever (IIRC) because she simply couldn’t stand to see how they treated it. They left it outside, all day long in their back-door “patio”, cooped up without protection even from the rain. The poor thing kept scratching their door to be left in.
Luckily, my sister was able to find a better owner for that dog.
There is a certain small dog the barks from the backyard of a certain house down the street. I often see this certain dog being walked while driving by. The steering wheel might just slight out of my hand some day.
