Ding-dong, sheriff calling…
It is never a good thing to hear the doorbell ring, look out the front window, and see two sheriff’s officers standing on your front step.
I opened the front door to find out that one of our neighbors (I have a pretty strong suspicion which one) filed a complaint that our dog barked for twenty minutes solid yesterday afternoon from 4:40 to 5:00 pm. It was all I could do to keep the words “bull manure*” from popping out of my gaping mouth. There is no way that occured. No. Way.
Back in Junie’s puppy days, she was cited for barking excessively. At that time we owned up to it. She was young and barky. Every squirrel that entered our yard was told to leave, every neighbor mowing their lawn was told to knock it off, every event outside needed to have a running commentary. We worked with her, got her spayed, and turned her into a dog that was still spirited and frisky, but more polite. She has her moments, but we never, ever let her bark incessantly.
It isn’t good for her, our neighbors, or ourselves to keep around a barking nuisance—and why would we want to risk having another citation?
I told the deputy that I strongly disagreed with the citation. Junie was on her angelic best-behavior, sniffing the deputies, wagging her stumpy tail at them, and not barking. She really made a good case for herself.
Right now I am very angry about this. Nobody has ever mentioned to us, face-to-face, that our dog annoys them. We aren’t mean people. We don’t bite. Neither does our dog.
* in an effort to maintain the goody two-shoes nature of this blog, I will not type what I was really thinking…
