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Dogs and their peeps … in MC’s ‘hood

I have a love/hate relationship with most of my neighbors. Nearly all of them have dogs.

I love dogs.

It’s their owners I sometimes hate.

In my neighborhood, there’s a family that has one or two dogs, it’s hard to tell, really. But the dog(s) bark all the time. And since I’m a nosy neighbor I invariably think something must be “wrong” for the dogs to be barking. They don’t have water. There’s a mass murderer lurching from house to house and they’re trying to sound an alert. They want to come inside. They want attention. They’re lonely. I worry.

I imagine all sorts of things when it’s probably just one thing: dogs bark. A lot.

Some neighbors drive me nuts because they let their dogs run free and then the dogs love to come into my yard and go to the bathroom, which for them is any choice piece of green patch I might happen to have. They want it to turn brown like the rest of the yard, I guess. I think they’re attracted to my yard because it’s so wild and there are lots of weeds usually, and the grass is untreated by chemicals, and oh, yeah, there’s always the smell of a feral cat around.

Some neighbors drive me nuts because they stop and wait patiently while their dogs piss (sorry, but no other words accurately describes what dogs do in this case) on my special plants that I’m trying to grow. Or, they let their dogs traipse through the jasmine minima that I’m painstakingly trying to tip layer. You can tell I’m doing something there — despite the weeds — I clearly have areas marked with protective bricks, etc. Oh well.

The worst attribute of some of my neighbors who are also dog walkers is that they smoke. Well, not that they smoke, actually — that doesn’t bother me. But they seem quite at liberty to throw their butts into my driveway, and onto the areas where I’ve put gravel, or onto my jasmine minima planting area. This behavior is shocking to me. People like that don’t deserve dogs.

Then, there are lots of neighbors who walk their dogs on leashes and carry little plastic bags to pick up after them. These are the “good” neighbors. But even those neighbors aren’t exactly friendly. I say hello as I’m walking Boomerang … I smile as they pass by, but to no avail. Most of the dog-walking folks in my hood seem to want to be left alone. One person is friendly, and so is his dog. But the rest, you might think I was a known axe-murderer (not that I murder axes, I mean, well, you know what I mean).

The people in my neighborhood that pick up dog poop, well, they deserve major props because you’ve got to love, really love, an animal to go around cleaning up after them – in public no less.

I mean, really, nothing signifies who is the master and who is the servant more than trailing around after your dog with a clutch of plastic baggies in your hand. And so, no matter how unsocial they might be with me, I know they’re just big softies in love with their dogs … if not with mankind.

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Posted on July 7th, 2009Comments RSS Feed
3 Responses to Dogs and their peeps … in MC’s ‘hood
  1. John W. Perkins
    July 7, 2009 at 1:58 pm

    I’ve found in many cases, the bigger the dog, the bigger the ego of an inconsiderate owner..

  2. Hi Mary Catherine,

    First, anyone who does not have his/her canine on a leash outside of a fenced yard doesn’t REALLY care about their pooch. Besides the fact that it’s probably the law, how would they feel when their canine attacks a fellow dog, or worse yet, a small child. When I was married I phyiscally had to wrestle a pitbull like dog off of our Maltese. Thankfully, Romeo’s dogtags were the only casualty. Or how would the owner feel if his best friend suddenly chased a squirrel into the path of an oncoming car?

    Second, civlity of all types seems to be lacking in today’s society. Yes, I cleaned up after our dogs. Not because it was the law – which it is – but because it’s the only civil thing to do. Sadly there will always be those who feel that someone else will do their dirty work for them.

    Can’t imagine someone not returning your warm smile. You must have some REALLY depressed people on your block. Keep smiling anyway, maybe someone will reciprocate.

    -Howard

  3. Well, I’m sure some of them smile occasionally, but honestly, I can only remember one. So many of them seem pretty unhappy! Civility is taking a tumble — on a lot of fronts!

    Thanks for reading Howard G! :)

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