Old, grumpy neighbors

The letter from "Neighbor" (I'll call the writer 'Ms Naybur') bothered me all day.  I thought about it at school, then after school while walking the dogs along the calm San Pedro River.  I finally talked to Kevin about this when I got back from my walk, with four wet dogs, while he was on the back patio.

"I was here all weekend long, the dogs didn't bark!" said Kevin.  He's a calm man who backs away from confrontations, and will comply with rules and regulations.  He said Ms Naybur had folded the letter and put it on his truck's windshield.

The ironic thing is, Ms Naybur has a shepherd mix, too, "Angel," who is no angel and will fence fight with our dogs.  She eggs our dogs on as much as our dogs egg Angel on.  So why is Ms Naybur targeting our dogs?  We have lived at our house for 15 years with never a complaint.  We will go outside at night if the dogs are barking and creating a ruckus (usually for a reason, like illegals running down the alley, or illegal javelina munching in the garden next door) to bring them back inside.  We know about the 10pm Quiet Time the county enforces, and we agree with that.

The only thing we can think of is Sadie.  She likes to bark aggressively at Angel. While her Canine Cognitive Dysfunction (CCD) hasn't progressed much in these last two years, she does still have bouts of baseless barking.   She will bark along the fence even if Angel isn't outside. This could be what is annoying Mr Naybur.  While I can vouch for the dogs sleeping all day when I am home, I can not vouch for what they do when I'm at the school.

We have thus agreed to some changes.  No more leaving the backporch light on and the patio door open when he leaves for work. Kevin and I have agreed to keep the lights out when he leaves for work at 5am.  He will also close the patio door for that one hour before I leave after him.  The darkness calms Sadie down some.  If she continues to bark senselessly after I leave, then Mr Naybur he will have to shut his window some and realize that dogs do bark to communicate and that his Angel does provoke our dogs.

We have had our share of weird neighbors over the years who have made noise or other annoying effects:  smokey bonfires at night, revving car engines, loud Mariachi music, bark fests from other dogs, psycho Chihuahuas meandering into our front yard just to annoy our dogs.   Everyone around here has always had two or more dogs in their yards and many don't get to go inside at night.  And guess what?  They bark!!! We never expected an older couple to be the most angry, most impatient and demanding neighbors yet.

I don't even want to become a grumpy old woman.