Barking Dog

Barking Dog
May, 2004

My dog never barks. While the neighbor’s dog barks all day long, my dog ignores it. He has the run of a pasture during the day and is in a chain-link kennel by the barn at night. With his history, I was aggravated when he started barking in the middle of the night. It is loud enough to wake me up. When it does, I get up, trudge to the front door, open it, and tell him to quit. I can see him run back into his dog house and, usually, that is that for the night.

But it kept getting worse and more frequent. I borrowed a friend’s barking collar (small static charge when a dog barks) and planned to put it on him if he kept it up. That evening, he barked again. I went to the door and quietly opened it trying to surprise him. As I crept onto my front porch, a full-grown coyote ambled across the lawn right outside the door and headed past the dog kennel.

To emphasize the point, on the following evening the coyote stood very near the house and howled at the moon.