From: jeffl AT comix.santa-cruz.ca.us (Jeff Liebermann) Newsgroups: ba.mountain-folk Subject: Re: barking dog Date: 4 May 1995 01:39:17 -0700 Doug Kubik (dkubik AT netcom.com) wrote: :My neighbor has a large dog that barks all the time ( I mean all the time ) :she is rarely home I have called the SPCA in Santa Cruz and they have left her :notes but the dog still barks. When I talk to her about it she said that its :not illegal for the dog to bark. :Does any one have any ideas ? :thanks :Doug :dkubik AT netcom.com It was late summer about 9 years ago. I was living peacefully and quietly among the trees, squirrels, and poison oak on the mud side of Hwy 9 in Ben Lomond. The house is on a dirt road, with few neighbors, and the sound of silence. This was the main feature of the area. Total and absolute silence. You could hold a normal conversation with someone 30 meters away without shouting. That is why I bought the place and that is why I still live there. Neighbors come and go and with them come the dogs. Someone claimed there at 2.5 dogs for every person on the hillside. I believe it. Every month a sign appears "Lost Dawg, Reward". This usually means that someone became fed up with the neighbors barking dog and shot it. It took a few years, but I learned to tolerate the lonely barking dogs. Dogs that were raised in the area didn't bark. Dogs that moved in with their owners, would bark all day. I had achieved a good balance between wanting to kill the dog and better judgement, when I inherited a new neighbor and his dog. The only difference between the dog and its owner was that the owner was permanently on drugs or booze. Both the dog and the owner would bark, howl, and bite. The dog was a large black dog. It decided to attack my pant leg whenever I was unable to easily throw something at it. This was usually when I was leaving my car, carrying things, or when I was dragging in fire wood. It shredded a few pant legs, but didn't draw blood. And it was too fast for me. I decided to retaliate. I removed the flare powder from the flare pistol off the boat. I shoved in the almost empty shell into the pistol and filled the barrel with household flour. I was going to turn the black dog white. I put some tissue paper over the barrel end and secured it with a rubber band. I drove to work. As I drove home up my dirt road, I spotted the dog in the bushes waiting for me. He was getting ready for his favorite game. I rolled down the window, waited for him to come close, pointed the flare pistol, and waited. The dog realized something was different and turned around to flee. I fired. KA-BOOM! There was a blinding flash, a very loud bang, and the smell of burning bread. I couldn't see a thing. I was blinded by the flash and burning flour. Any finely divide combustible, in the presence of sufficient oxygen, and a spark, will blow up. This is why grain elevators sometimes explode. How could I have been so stupid? I staggered up the stairs and stumbled into the shower in an effort to hose off whatever was burning my eyebrows and hair. I was sure I had blinded myself. When I started seeing a bright blurr, I felt my way over to the couch, dripping water everywhere, and collapsed just in time to have my neighbor appear and drunkenly ask "What'd you do to my dawg?" several times. I was sure he was going to try and kill me so I yelled "Go away or I'll do the same to you". He went away. I never saw him or the dog again. Later, I learned that he had been evicted and served a few days earlier for non-payment of rent. I also learned that I had torched the hair off the dogs hind quarters and that it would have some trouble sitting down for a while. Such is the price of peace and quiet.