Ruff

It's almost Turkey Day, but my contrarian nature inspires me to ruminate on man's best friend.

We don't have a dog any longer, since one of our spawn beloved children is allergic to dogs, but I still consider myself a dog person (I had a cat once, but I prefer a pet who at least looks up when I enter the room, and the constant carpet urination was a turn-off.)

My favorite dog story involves my friend, Riley and her dog, Mandy. A few years ago, Riley's sister and her family came to visit for the holidays. Riley went to work as usual, and asked her brother-in-law to keep an eye on her dog while she was gone. It was an easy job -- Mandy was a friendly, shaggy, black lab mix who simply required access to her food bowl and to be put outside once or twice during the day.

When Riley got home that evening, she asked how things had gone with the dog. Her brother-in-law reported that everything went fine, except that Mandy hadn't come back immediately when he called her inside. The brother-in-law went looking for her, searching the neighborhood for a good fifteen minutes before he found her and brought her home. Mandy was cheerful and hungry after her excursion, and polished off her food bowl when she got home.

"That's fine," Riley said, eyeing the happy black dog who had padded into the room.

"But that's not our dog."

It seems that the brother-in-law had inadvertently grabbed a similar-looking neighbor dog. The real Mandy was located soon afterwards, and the good-natured interloper went back home, slightly confused but well fed.

Mandy went on to live a long and peaceful life. My second-favorite Mandy story happened shortly after she passed away. I stopped by Riley's house and let myself in. When I found Riley in the kitchen, I told her that her interior door to the garage was open.

"Oh, yes. That's because the dog is still in the garage."

I was surprised and slightly taken aback. I was pretty sure Mandy was put to sleep at the vet's office. Were they planning to bury her at home? I gave Riley a quizzical look.

"Yeah, she isn't doing well, so we're just leaving her in the car."

I didn't know what to say. From Riley's tone, I didn't think that this was a symptom of crazy grief, but it had been at least a couple of weeks since Mandy died, and this was just plain weird. My expression went from quizzical to extremely confused.

"We just got her fixed, and she is feeling so bad that we're just letting her rest in the car."

She continued on as I tried to put all the pieces together. Apparently veterinary care was much more advanced than I realized.

"You know we got a new dog from the pound?"

Mandy and her successor, Molly, are extremely sweet dogs, but not all dogs occupy such a fond place in my heart. Our neighbor's dogs bark at dawn every morning are driving me nuts. This is unacceptable at five in the evening, let alone five in the morning. What's worse, the acoustics of our backyard -- which is built on a hill -- make the barks sound like they are coming from inside our bedroom.

A friend has a similar problem, and she shared an IM exchange between her husband and neighbor. It cracked me up, so I'll share it. Note that the neighbor is very sarcastic, and does not really intend to harm any animals, so please do not sick PETA on me.

NedNeighbor08
yt?
That dog on the next street is a pain in the ass.
HankHusband1234 9:13 am
Totally agree about the dog
NedNeighbor08
Don't let anyone know about this; I don't want them to think I'm going to kill the dog.
I AM going to kill the dog...I just don't want them to think it.
We should talk. This shouldn't be allowed to go on.
HankHusband1234
seriously....we need to do something
NedNeighbor08
I don't want to start a neighborhood fight if it can be avoided but it would be nice if it stopped. I guess you can inform the hoa or call the police.
HankHusband1234
yeah....probably hoa
I don't mind calling
NedNeighbor08
ok, let me know. I was almost ready to scream from the deck on Saturday.
"I'm Hank Husband and I'm mad as hell about your f'ing dog!!!! Shut that bastard up!!!!"
HankHusband1234
nice. thanks for that.
NedNeighbor08
another approach would be to get a recording of a dog barking and aim it directly at their house through a kickass sound system. Not only will it sex up their dog but they would "get it" after an hour or two of that.
I know you probably think I'm kidding....but....
NedNeighbor08
or find one of those classical composers that composes the sort of dissonant music that keeps you extremely tense as you listen to it and just doesn't resolve the way that the ear would like it to. We could easily create a worse-than-Guantanamo environment for these guys should we need to.
HankHusband1234
OK...will keep that in our back pocket :-)
NedNeighbor08
they won't even be able to sleep at night
and my policy is to water-board, early and often.
we need a game-changer to let them know we are serious
HankHusband1234
let's make them think their house is haunted
NedNeighbor08
I like that too.
HankHusband1234
they won't know it was us
and they will move out on their own
or maybe that their DOG is possessed
I don't mind them, just their dog
NedNeighbor08
I think you need to just handle things in a way that's scary. For instance, we go over and politely ask them to turn down the dog; they refuse. Instead of getting angry, we just laugh hysterically as we walk back towards our houses.

If you try any of these at home, please do not mention my name.

Happy Thanksgiving!