Oh HEY Mr. Police Man

Whenever I get new neighbors, either because I am new or they are new, I like to introduce myself. When I first moved in with Brian, I made sure that I knew the names of our immediate neighbors, Clay and Mandy. Clay is a police officer and their yard shares a fence with our yard, so I wanted to make sure that not only were they looking after our house if we were away, but that we just had a friendly relationship. I like being friends with neighbors, what can I say? Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to meet the other neighbors, and this morning I realized that may have been a mistake.

Brian always lets the dogs out when he gets up in the morning, usually around 5:45 a.m. Lately they have been good, but sometimes they like to bark at the neighbor's houses, which usually results in a chase around the yard by yours truly. This morning, Chase didn't go out but Charlie must have found one of the cats and proceeded to...make conversation with it, also known as bark incessantly. Brian got him in and settled down and I went back to bed.

Cue my 6:50 a.m. wake-up call. While I was getting ready for work this morning, I was trying to decide whether or not to leave the door open to the back yard or try and close it. When I close it, I can crate Charlie and Chase will pretty much keep to himself. My concern is letting them out during lunch, and I want to make sure that when I do that, I have enough time in the week leading up to it to make sure any accidents are going to be prevented. While deciding, I locked Chase and Charlie outside so that they could use the bathroom while I was getting ready. Charlie didn't seem to like the idea, and decided to practice his barking, which unfortunately sounds more like he's being beaten with a stick than simply left outside to go to the bathroom. After I finished washing my face, brushing my teeth and getting dressed, I let them back in. Since they had been out there about 15 minutes, I was hoping that between barks, Charlie had at least gone to the bathroom. As it was approaching time to leave, I crated Charlie and left Chase outside so that I could bring my purse, binder, and lunch out to my car. Chase has figured out how to push the screen door open, so I didn't want to take any chances.

Here is where it gets fun. Chase barks for about 10 seconds because he can see me through the chain link fence. I give him "the look" and he realizes that he is in trouble, so he sits down and just looks at me while I finish packing my car. Charlie on the other hand can't see me at all, which causes him to do his crazy bark/whine. Like I said, it sounds like I am beating him senseless instead of just packing my car.

The same thing happened on Brian's birthday weekend when we crated Charlie while packing the car. He barked and whined the entire time I was packing, and one of the neighbors came up and asked me if everything was okay and if I was abusing my dog. I laughed because obviously the dog was in the crate squealing, and I was no where near him. Yeah dude, I'm abusing him with my mind...I thought the guy was joking. Judging by the scene that was about to unfold this morning, he wasn't. So I tell Charlie to hush and bring my workout bag from my car into the house. I go about making breakfast and as I let Chase back in the house and unlock Charlie's crate, I notice a car in the driveway. As I walk outside, I realize, oh hi Mr. Police man at my front door.

Our conversation went like this:

Mr. Officer: "Good morning, Ma'am."
Me: "Uh, hello..."
Mr. Officer: "I'm just here because someone called in a noise complaint of barking dogs, and we wanted to make sure that everything was okay. Are the animals inside?"
*Commence Charlie squealing/barking and Chase doing his confused bark that sounds more like a cow in my living room instead of a dog
Me: "....uh, yes."
Mr. Officer: "Can I check on them?"
Me: "Of course."
Mr. Officer: (Checks out both dogs. Chase tries to lick his face while Charlie runs around his legs.) "I can tell that nothing out of the ordinary is going on. We just wanted to make sure that there was no animal abuse happening and that the animals weren't barking excessively."
Me: "I promise that I'm not beating them or anything. That's just what they sound like...I swear."

Thankfully the officer laughed and told me to have a good morning. He did however give me a verbal warning to try and keep the dogs from barking before dawn...I guess Brian won't be letting the dogs out anymore when he gets up.

I think that this may be my biggest pet peeve about neighbors. Is it not possible for you to simply walk up to my door and ask me to quiet my dogs down instead of calling the police, who obviously have much more important things to worry about than a stray cow in my living room? Guess I will be introducing myself a little bit more productively and with copies of my cell phone number this weekend.

Any advice on how to stop dogs from barking, because Charlie and Chase are about to get nice pretty anti-bark collars if I don't come up with an alternative solution.

This is Chase in "time-out" for making it sound like I adopted a herd of cattle.