The Curse of the North is not always a curse. The neighbor on
this side of the fence does a lot of dog sitting for relatives.
His two dogs by themselves are
not that bad.
However, when the other two dogs come to visit, it turns into a
barkfest, and usually for
a couple weeks.
You wake up, let your dogs out and walk out back with
them to throw a few sticks,
play around a little and on one side of the yard you are greeted with
this every
morning.
Just Press Play if You
Feel Masochistic. External:
Here we
have four mixed breed dogs (one over the limit)
which
happen to be named after adult beverages.
.
Whiskey, Brandy and other assorted liquors.
These dogs don't bark at me. They bark at our dogs if they
look like they are having fun.
This is normally instigated by the younger visitors.
NonStop.
Until it gets too hot.
Or until I go back inside.
Of course the cairn doesn't help matters either.
If
it looks like the neighbor's dogs are not making enough noise, he is
more than happy to go over and jack them up.
Rotten little dog.
The Curse of the South
May I introduce to you for your listening pleasure, Vincent.
This rotten dog barks at everyone and everything nonstop,
except for me.
These people have three dogs. Two you never see and this one patrols
the yard.
Vincent is absolutely hands down the worst sack of skin I have ever
seen on the
other side of a fence.
I have talked to the neighbor about Vincent several times and the
neighbor apologizes and says,
"He really likes to listen to his voice, doesn't he."
Something is not quite clicking over there - the lights aren't burning
that bright, so it is hard to
get really aggravated at the owners.
Vincent and I have come to an understanding.
He doesn't bark
at me nonstop and I don't soak him with the hose set to 'Pressure Wash'
and if he is out of range for
that,
the "Super Soaker".
Unfortunately, hoses and Super Soakers do not work very well in the
dead of winter and it can be pain packing around a Super Soaker
every time you wish to go outside and do a little work or just enjoy
yourself on yourproperty.
Others however don't have that same level of understanding with
Vincent.
One day he had the lady on the other side of the fence literally
crying, pleading for the dog to shut up.
He didn't, of course.
Try to do any maintenance around the yard and it
barks
nonstop.
A neighbor working two yards away will be subjected to this
harassment all day.
Try to relax out on the deck with a Cairn and a bottle of
wine, and if the rotten dog sees you, you are get to listen to
this for hours on end:
Don't worry - just a taste
of the actual experience.
The neighbors on this side do not really respond
to their rotten dog barking his head off unless it is early in
the morning.
After all, that is what dogs do, isn't it?
What to do About IT
This has gone past aggravating. I am tired of dealing with it
and my thoughts on the subject do not exactly
consist of things benign.
When in Doubt, Consult Your
Better Half
One day after speculating out loud about what size shot
would produce an optimal pattern at say 50 feet, my
wife thought she might have
a better idea.
She said that given all the advances in technology, there should be
something out there which could effectively deal with obnoxious dogs.
I said yes, I heard the military developed a sort
of pain weapon; a device which heats up your skin and makes you want to
crawl out of it.
Not a bad idea!
I wonder if there is a civilian version.
She said no, that is not exactly what she had in mind. What
she was thinking of was those high frequency bark stoppers - the kind
dogs
can hear and people can't.
That could work, couldn't it?
I said something in the 180+ decibel range would work fine for me.
I'd have a look.
Three Hours Later
I couldn't find anything that would actually blow out
their
ear drums but I did come up with this:
The user
reviews were mixed but all in all this product by Pet Safe seemed to
have the most
positive comments.
I put in an order.
When
people order these, they must know people are ordering them out of
desperation because this came quick.
I ordered UPS ground on a Saturday afternoon
and it arrived on Tuesday.
Out of
the box it looks like this. There is a simple dial with three
modes of operation and a 'Test' position.
The modes are Low (up to 15'), Medium (Up to
30') and High (Up to 50').
Note: The Test Position stays on all the time but drains the battery
faster. Boy, this is tempting.
It takes one 9 volt battery and can be mounted with screws too.
I opted to try this out on Vincent first.
One
thing which really gets Vincent going is trying to do any maintenance
by the fence.
Here I am planting a Dwarf Pampas Grass which will grow
really big and block a lot of view.
The Anti-Bark device is mounted about 6 feet up and about 30 feet from
one of Vincent's favorite barking locations.
I set the switch to Maximum.
The results were near instantaneous.
Vincent let out one long
bark, paused in mid-stream, whined and ran off in the other direction.
Three
days later the results are most impressive. The most Vincent
does anymore is run to the opposite side of the fence, gather up
speed and run past me
with a drive-by bark, and a short one at that.
Today, Vincent walked up to the fence, looked at me and didn't make a
sound. For over 10 minutes.
So impressed was I, I went in the garage and got him a
PigTwist and tossed it over the fence.
He regarded it with some suspicion (and not without good reason),
picked it up and spent another half
hour wandering around the
yard with the twist hanging out of his mouth like a cigar before
settling down
and chewing.
In silence.
Two thumbs up for the barker breaker by Pet Safe.
I would be interesting in hearing how others have dealt with this
problem so if you have something to share without too many borderline
descriptive phrases, feel free.
Perhaps others can benefit from ideas which have actually worked.
