How to not get along with your neighbor...

[MineralMan]

While walking our two dogs, our normal route takes us past a house that has two pitbulls. They're always inside, but bark madly at our two beaglish pups. They Scrabble at the front window of the house and look for all the world like they'd be happiest if they could break through the window and eat our dogs. The woman who lives in the house often can be heard screaming at the dogs. Her exact words, every time are, "Shut the fuck up!" She often can be heard yelling obscenities at her two children, as well. Anyhow, we've started walking on the other side of the street. But that's not the main story here.

Her house shares a driveway with the house next door. That's pretty common in this 1950's subdivision, where double-wide asphalt driveways are shared by adjacent houses. We have one just like that. Those driveways lead to detached garages, generally. So the woman with the dogs and the filthy language has one of those garages, with her neighbor's garage just a few feet away. On her garage, over the main door, is the sign below. Somehow, I have a suspicion that the sign should be on her neighbor's garage. Just one funny story from my little corner of St. Paul, MN. Walking dogs is a great way to find funny stories, it seems:

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. Actually, that's what one of our two beagles often does.

The whole barking her head off and scrabbling at the window like she's trying to break out and attack, any time anyone else walks a dog past on the sidewalk. When they were younger, she did it so often we regular had to replace one of the curtains, roughly once every 2-3 months because she'd clawed or bitten holes in it. Nowadays, thankfully, it's more rare, and she mostly just barks or gives dirty looks at the 'invaders'.

[MineralMan]

2. Our beagle/basset did that for a while.

I discovered that if I went over and touched his nose with my finger and said "no barking," he'd stop. Now, I just have to say, "no barking" to get the same effect. There's something about a finger on the nose that gets his full attention. He goes sort of cross-eyed trying to look at my finger and gets all confused, I guess. Dogs are simple, sometimes.

I figured that screaming at him wouldn't have as good an effect, somehow.

[jwirr]

3. Our year old Jack Russell terrior barks at strangers (often people he knows who are wearing hats).

This week is hunting opener and a lot of the family use our yard to park in and walk back into the woods behind the house. Jingles goes crazy and barks the whole time the car sits there. Heaven forbid if they actually come into the house. I have been trying to get him to shut up but often have to lock him in my bedroom. There is such a thing as becoming too good a watch dog.