Category Archives: Barking dogs

WITTA DOGS chapter three

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WITTA DOGS and suburban dogs in general

Today, and my moaning is monotonous, I know; the Howler did the morning shift, howling loud and long from dawn to noon, shredding the peaceful hours between ride-on roaring.

When its owner came home to an apparently silent dog, another neighbour with two yappers left for destinations unknown. The Yappers, as usual, considered that their lives were from that minute utterly desperate, informed the neighbourhood loud, long, and incessant, stimulating a few distant mates to sing the chorus.

Enough of the silent, inward moans from me.

One day, one of the houses nearby will be sold, as happens quickly in this popular spot. Sold to someone who doesn’t give a damn about neighbourly feeling, and sets about silencing the community dog-pound. With vigour and determination.

First, she will record the cacophony. Quality sound, time, duration, date, and address all meticulously formatted. The echoing early hours will be a symphonic storm of dog-yells. She will do this for a few weeks, and select the most irritating for archives.

On a bad night, she will contact the police, the local pound, and the RSPCA, leaving urgent messages, because none of those services operate after sundown, and the reason burglaries occur then.

She will repeat the calls next day, with follow-up messages by mail, email, and the multitude of electronic media now available.

She won’t give a damn about the neighbourhood, but will force signatures to a most specific document of complaint, cleverly worded, with emphasis on nuisance, noise-pollution, insomnia etc.. I’d sign it. She is also strangely attractive, and a very good talker.

Enough signatures and recordings (four rabid neglected dogs in constant chorus, 7pm to dawn: 9 hours of cacophony……..and that’s just one example from her library) will insure that the offending dogs will be silenced, humanely. Remaining alive, but voiceless, and at the owners’ expense.

Now bear in mind that right now, and for the five previous hours, as I type, two nearby Yappers plus occasional friends have been in constant row. And are yet. Not more than three seconds silence at any time for that period. And daylight is fading. It could go on all night, and has many, many times.

The sound is somehow magnified as darkness falls. The later, the louder. Pre-dawn the worst.

The woman instigating the silencing will have everyone’s support. All us weak-willed, lily-livered, afraid-to-offend wusses will serve our bold leader to achieve what we should have done years ago.

Even the owners of the most aggravating dogs will sign, ha ha, because THEY DON’T KNOW!           And right now………….

                                             …………. I await their return, and a peaceful night.

P.S. Darkness. Even the birdsong ceased. Echoing double-yapyapyapping ricochets, rending the still air.

WITTA DOGS

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WITTA DOGS………..IS IT JUST ME?

PERHAPS I’M JUST A MISERABLE OLD COMPLAINING SOD (don’t answer that). BUT.

Witta is a paradise, but this Garden of Eden is not polluted with talking snakes, neither am I in danger of being cast-out for scrumping apples.

There is, however, pollution of an unusual sort. Noise pollution; day and night. The night variety worse, in this otherwise peaceful rural landscape of beautiful jungley scrub and tree-shaded gardens.

Now, the chain-saw and ride-on mower cause temporary pain. They will eventually stop, and usually before dark. And I do contribute, so can’t complain.

Now, the native birds are rowdy, from dawn to dusk, and there’s the occasional illegal rooster, and cars do go past; then there’s the school bus, and the garbage truck on Wednesday mornings, and some folk will practice carpentry and piano with various skill, but there’s a much, much worse noise.

It will start when a neighbour goes out in the evening; drives to the film-night in Maleny, or to visit friends. Worse, visits friends and stays the night.

Worse still, neighbours that go away for the weekend, or for a few days.

LEAVING THEIR TWO OR THREE DOGS AT HOME ALONE, IN THE YARD.

We know the instant they drive off.

The whole neighbouhood knows the instant the leave.

On the worst of nights and days, many neighbours near and far will leave their homes and dogs for various canine-free activities, WHILST THEIR WRETCHED PETS HOWL AND SCREAM AND YELL from the very instant the car doors slam until the gravel crunches on their owners’ return. We hear this. We suffer for the duration. We get angry.

Imagine. The evening quiet. Even the currawongs give up. An occasional lapwing calls on its twilight homeward flight. A boobook hoots like a sad cuckoo. A car starts next door and simultaneously two dogs bark. Rabid, furious, outraged barking as the car leaves. The evening destroyed, the barking frantic, unstoppable, non-stop, no stopping, double barking on and on and on.

Barking dogs are indefatigable. They do not tire. The more dogs, the more clamorous. Only starvation, thirst and death will quiet a ‘left’ dog.

Owners, as a caste, do not know this fact. As their soundproof car-doors slam, they drift in cushioned silence on their journey to oblivion, oblivious. Unaware of the cacophony in their wake. Of stay-at-homes with ruined evenings and corrupted sleep, waiting, waiting, staring in the dark, hoping for the neighbours’ return, and the instant peace it will bring.

The dog-owner returns to a quiet dog. What, my dog barks? We don’t know our own dog? It never barks. Listen: do you hear it bark?

But we know, and we are angry. We forget, after a few nights of peace, and our anger dissipates. But often, night after night, daytime too, there are many absent owners, and the never-ending barking of a dozen dogs brings thoughts of selling-up. Now there are dog-owners who are aware: they are responsible, reasonable, and their dogs likewise. And there are many neighbours in agreement regarding the problem, but no-one is sufficiently driven to instigate an official complaint. Yet.

But nights of peace are so blissful here on our perfect hill, we sleep, and we forget.

Who let the dogs out?

Post script: Neighbours of friends in The Grange in Brisbane had two incessantly-barking miniature collies. The whole street complained, with the result that the dogs were de-barked by a vet, and peace reigned. Despite the dogs’ best efforts, little sound is now emitted.