Barking Mad: irresponsible dog owners, take heed!

Trust me when I say I didn’t always hate dogs — really!

Now, I will make no secret of being a crazy cat lady from the age of 3 — as you can no doubt tell from the number of cat stories I’ve published on Medium since May. I continued to like cats — even after a poor experience at the age of 5 which I have described here.

As for dogs, I had no opinion then, probably because I had no actual contact with them until the age of 8 when I was visiting Taiwan and got chased by an aggressive beagle. I didn’t begin to hate dogs either when I was frightened by a pedestrian’s growling German Shepherd two years later: it was a good thing the owner had firm control of it as it strained against its leash. For me, these were just two dogs.

In fact, I even came close to liking dogs in my teen years, beginning with a Shetland sheepdog mix that I pet sat for one summer. Scamper was the sweetest and most quiet dog that barked only once when I opened the back door and tossed him a ball: I joked that he should be an honorary cat. Then there were my various relatives’ fluffy, friendly, and playful Pomeranians. Who could resist them? So for a good period of my life, although I preferred cats to dogs, I didn’t mind the latter too much.

That is until my parents’ neighbors from hell moved in sometime around 2006.

Truth be told, they weren’t horrible people according to my mother. They were at least somewhat friendlier than the previous neighbors who resented the fact that an Asian family — us — lived next door to them. But the new neighbors’ selfish love for their dogs and lack of consideration for others ultimately made them the worst possible neighbors.

This took place barely a year after my father had a heart attack and required a quintuple bypass. He already suffered insomnia during quiet nights, but it was especially aggravated by the dogs barking at 5 a.m. for a good half hour before the owner let them back in. This was not an occasional bark or two but a round of barking followed by a few moments of silence and then another round of barking — on and on and on. Dad would not be able to fall asleep until 6:30 am–sometimes 7 a.m.

So my mother told the neighbor about the problem and asked if she could do something about her dogs. The neighbor simply shrugged, replying “not really. They just like to bark.”

Meanwhile, because of my own cat problems — not being able to find a good vet for Flutter’s appetite problems — I moved in temporarily with my parents in search of a better vet. Since my room was next to the neighbor’s house, I heard the dogs loud and clear. My own insomnia problems were bad enough, even if not as terrible as my father’s.

That is, until that one morning when I couldn’t take it any more. I had been up late, trying to complete a project I had been working on. It was around 5:15 in the morning when they started barking. I leaned out the window and yelled as loudly as possible, “SHUT YOUR FUCKING DOGS UP, YOU ****.” (It was a word that rhymes with “punt.”)

Suddenly, there was complete silence. And not only silence at that moment but for the next two weeks. Then when the barking started again, I shouted the same. More silence for another two weeks.

Fearing I was beginning to sound like the local neighborhood kook, I called the police. Enough was enough. How long the silence lasted after 3 days, I don’t know because my parents sold their house and moved to a building in a more convenient area — and where, fortunately, no dogs were allowed. (They had already planned on moving because real estate prices in 2006 were still very good.)

But the incidents with the neighbor infuriated me long after we were gone. Their sheer lack of consideration bothered me: it was obvious that they had no wish to address the problem. They didn’t care that my father had just had a heart attack. They silenced the dogs only when I yelled out the window in a threatening manner–probably because they thought I might do something to their precious little darlings. I will not comment on what I would have done had we stayed there any longer: truth be told, I don’t know. Sleep deprivation can drive one batty, in addition to causing depression and suicide— to say nothing of physical health issues such as: an increased risk of hypertension, diabetes, obesity, depression, heart attack, and stroke. Yes, sleep deprivation can kill!

However, people can also be adversely affected by dog barking in the daytime as well (to say nothing of those who work the night shift). On Facebook, one person complained about how yapping dogs at an apartment near a school was disrupting classes, adding that “It was affecting my mental health and that of my students.” Although animal control was called, they were unable to do anything but issue a toothless warning. The writer concludes that “The psychological torture that barking dogs inflict, and their negligent owners, is unacceptable in a civilized society.”

It’s not surprising then that over the last two decades or so, an increasing number of retaliatory incidents have taken place where people from all over the world–even dog owners themselves–have taken action against their negligent dog-owning neighbors. Some have pranked them by recording the neighbor’s dog and playing it back at full blast. Others have dumped buckets of water on the barking dog in the middle of the night. Still, others have resorted to poisoning, beating, and shooting them. And some have just taken that old-fashioned route of suing which can take years to resolve.

The fact is too many dog owners seem to forget that while their dog’s barking is music to their ears, it is not for others. Some will argue that it’s not the dog’s fault–it’s the owner’s. Yes, indeed: a responsible owner should do something. If you are one–bless you and your dog! But why should the rest of us suffer because of an owner’s irresponsibility? Why should I have to waste money on a noise-cancelling machine simply because YOU are too lazy and selfish to control your dog? And why should I wear uncomfortable headphones to sleep?

But arguably worse than this irresponsibility is the unwillingness of the dog community to address this problem — if not downright defensiveness and even hostility. This didn’t use to be as bad a problem in the 1960s, 70s or even ’80s when dog-owning behavior was still mostly rational: perhaps that’s why I didn’t hate dogs as much then?

Indeed, as I’ve been reading about noise complaints from Facebook to Youtube and community forums, I’ve started noticing other complaints about dogs. It turns out irresponsible dog ownership isn’t just limited to barking. It’s also people not picking up after them. People letting dogs run unleashed–especially those prone to attacking people. People bringing their dogs everywhere. You have a right to live as you please — but not when it infringes upon mine. Why should the rest of us have to deal with barking at all hours, dog poop in our yards, and dogs everywhere in public spaces — making a mess, no less?

Ultimately, dog people, it seems, are actually like the proverbial selfish cat that they hate because so many remain unresponsive and aloof to the concerns of others. But this will be the subject of another post.