....© 2000, Kimit A. Muston
I am afraid there is trouble brewing in my neighborhood. My wife and I have lived here for seven years and I guess it's always been an average place. As neighbors we greet each other in the grocery store. We trade videos over the fence. We endure loud parties and complain about barbecue smoke from next door. But something different has happened recently. Someone has left an anonymous note taped to a neighbor's mail box.The note has to do with dog barking. We are a neighborhood of people and dogs. A miniature dachshund named Ernie lives in our house. Next door lives an Akita named Dodger. Poodles live down the street as does a bundle of fur and anger named Brandy. Our back door neighbor is a 15 year old jet-black razorback Labrador named Amy.
The dogs talk to each other every day. The passing of each squirrel and opossum and deliveryman is announced and each announcement demands a response but it's all single syllable conversations, just neighbors putting in their two cents worth. I find it comforting to listen to this over-the-fence gossip from a neighborhood that occupies the same space as my human neighborhood. At night it lets me know that Dodger and Amy are on patrol and that Ernie is sleeping in the chair beside me.
But someone has taken offense and the object of their anger is Amy. The note began, "Your dog has been barking every day, all day long." And I know that is untrue.
Whenever Amy's human companions go on vacation my wife and I drop in to check up on her twice a day. We stay awhile on each visit because Amy won't eat without people in her house. We know that Amy is not a big barker. We know this because our living room overlooks Amy's back yard. We hear every deep throated "Woooof," she makes.
Amy barks on Thursday mornings when her back yard is invaded by gardeners but it's a small yard and she drives them off in half an hour or so. And she likes to remind the squirrels that the rose bushes and the lemon tree belong to her. But the squirrels don't tease her much anymore, not since she got old.
It doesn't make any sense that someone would complain about Amy. She and her humans have lived in this neighborhood longer than we have. Everyone knows and likes them. The note goes on to say, "Perhaps you should get your dog a new toy or an animal companion," but I don't think the writer is really concerned about Amy's well being. If he or she were they would have signed their name. This note is just signed, "A Neighbor." And I know that is not true, either.
Neighbors complain and bark at each other, that's part of what a neighborhood is. But anonymity allows the writer to bark without anyone barking back so the notes tend to keep coming. The people receiving the notes get suspicious and angry. And the neighborhood becomes just another row of houses. Maybe that is why dogs always respond to a distant bark with one of their own. It's the neighborly thing to do.
It's been a week since the note arrived and there is no word yet of any others. Perhaps the writer realized they had the wrong house or the wrong dog. Perhaps the writer is merely working up the courage to write again. I could be next to get a note from "A neighbor."