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You have heard of my neighbors, of course, the wife who thinks I'm a hussy because I garden barefoot, the mincing husband she fears I might lure away with my outrageously uncovered tootsies, their fucking dog. Well, that dog was introduced to me not four years ago as a puppy in the parking lot of the now defunct local grocery store. A tiny and very cute little dachshund... who proceeded over the years to aggravate the snot out of me. Well, in fact, I have not been aggravated by the dog. She's only the evidence of her asshole owners.
The classic example was the morning when I had finally, finally, finally fallen asleep after a very long and agonizing bout with sleeplessness, and she started barking her frantic little hate bark at the other neighbor, the one who is dumb as a post, fat as a pig, bald as a cue ball, toothless as an Okie in Deliverance, and patronizing as a would-be master of my pulchritude. She hates everybody, but especially him, and her mincing old pussy "master" would not, can not, do Thing One about it. That bark literally shot me through and through with a bolt of adrenaline that lifted me off my bed and out the door so fast I didn't even know what hit me. I think I threatened Milquetoast with physical harm if he didn't shut that fucking dog's yap. He was backing away with a stricken look on his face until he, and the piercing yapper, were back in his house. Fatso even ran off about ten paces.
It had gotten to the point where I couldn't even go out there in my own yard without that dog barking her head off like a ten alarm fire. I couldn't leave my house in the dawn after my sleepless nights without risking bringing the whole neighborhood down with that dog's mania. Every other dog for miles around thinks I'm it on a stick, wiggles itself nearly to a puddle in anticipation of our happy meeting. Not her.
This is not her fault. Mrs. Envy and Mr. Milquetoast try my patience. I try so hard not to be hard on them, because they are old, about ten years older than I am, and both of them have heart conditions. They take turns having middle-of-the-night ambulances to the hospital. Which is why I have been chased out of my own yard and avoid leaving my house when it will alarm everyone in a mile radius. I don't want my urge to pull weeds or to go sit on the beach at sunrise to be the cause of the final heart attack... even if they're idiots. They could have trained that dog to be mellow and nice and not to come unstuck the moment she heard the slightest noise. It's very, very easy to do, but it involves remonstrating with her. Might even have involved making her believe death were imminent, without harming even a hair on her body, but easy peasy, man, a mother fucking snap, no prob.
Dogs are pack animals. They never stop relying on their pack leader. All you have to do is assert your leadership, doggy-wise, and they are the greatest little friends ever. I understand the reluctance to go there, but that's human-think, not dog-think. If they cannot find a pack leader, they will, however incapably, because this is default dogtude, become the pack leader. And dog pack leaders are total assholes. Psychopaths. An infraction against a human pack leader will garner a raised voice or physical restraint or a good smack with a rolled up newspaper. An infraction against a dog pack leader involves blood and often broken limbs... and, yet, it is the motive drive in all dogs, the canine mandate... pack leader, pack leader, pack leader. Even when the pack is only two beings strong.
Yet these two humans insisted it was impossible. They could never hurt or even offend their precious little beast.
Well, lately, she's been quiet. At first I figured it was just because we'd all been trained to give that house a wide berth... on tiptoe... but the quiet has kept up for months. The other day I mentioned this oddity to another neighbor while in the midst of my ritual love fest with her dog. She told me that Envy and Milquetoast had their fiend put down. What? They euthanized their spoiled dachshund because they didn't want to deal with her while one or the other of them was in the hospital. They killed her because she was an inconvenience. Plus, no, putting her in a kennel for the duration was out of the question... because she didn't like the kennel. So. Obviously, having her killed was the prudent move.
The reprehensible fucks.
