Monday, January 5, 2009

The Croaking Dog

Over the holidays, I spent lots of time at home napping. Napping is one of my favorite activities since I lead a relatively sedentary lifestyle, especially in winter. Sleeping is not really a problem for me, it is getting to sleep that can be a nightmare.

In one of the houses behind me is a family that has a dog. That, in and of itself, is not unusual. The problem is that this dog does not bark, it croaks. Loudly. No, it is not a basenji, it is some kind of mutty-poodly mixture of random canine genetics. It is not very old, either, which is why I cannot understand why it croaks. Loudly. I suspect that it may have some sort of disorder or some past injury that causes it to be unable to bark properly. Perhaps it barked so much that it eventually suffered some sort of throat damage that causes the raspy pseudo-bark. Who's to say?

When this dog is outside, it croaks constantly. I'm unsure of whether it wants attention, wants water or is mentally ill, but that is all it seems to do is bark, er...croak.

During the holidays, from Christmas Eve to the following Sunday, the dog croaked ... constantly ... for those nearly five days, twenty-four hours per day. I am not exaggerating on this. The house where the dog lives was dark, so I can only assume the family was away.

From my property, I can see the house pretty well, but I can only see the dog on occasion it gets near the chain-link end of their fence. The compassionate part of me wanted to have gotten closer to see if the poor thing actually had food and water and confirmed that it was ok. The cynical part of me would have stopped the compassionate part of me because it is none of my business and they would have surely called the law on me. The mean, unpleasant part of me just wanted the thing to shut the hell up.