Dog Love 12

You may already know that many things dogs do annoy me. But nothing annoys me more than barking. Now, I live on a dog-free street, only a short walk from a pier where the only barks I hear come from harbor seals. So how can I describe this incredible annoyance?

I go visit a friend who has not one, but two young rat terriers. 

Had I known what a rat terrier was, I would not have made the three-hour drive to spend a weekend with her. Regardless of how much I like her, there is a limit to how much I can tolerate noisy dogs.

Now, rat terriers are the small kind of annoying dogs. Larger than a chihuahua and smaller than a Jack Russell, according to online searches. They are supposed to be loving, affectionate, friendly, good with small children, and loyal. But what about noise? This is the part that is mentioned only in the small print buried at the very bottom of the page.

The moment I entered my friend’s townhouse, the barking started: high pitched, breathless, loud, ear-piercing squeals that went on and on and on. 

Those two balls of energy loved to bark at stuff. I couldn't hear or see what it was, but every now and then they would break into hysterics for no apparent reason, and then stop, again with no apparent reason. At one point I decided to leave the house and go for a walk to sustain my sanity, but to no avail. I could hear those high-pitched barks from far away. The neighborhood was quiet, no cars driving around, no loud music blasting through windows, only barking and crickets. 

When I returned from my temporary exile, they again broke out into a symphony of screaming barks so loud that I had to cover my ears. While they were standing in front of me barking furiously, my friend explained that they were barking because they didn’t know me yet. But shortly afterward, when her neighbor came by bearing homemade vegan cookies, they started barking again, this time because they knew her.

The barking hysterics sounded to me more like, “Hey, let’s play,” and not “Watch out, I'm a dog and I can tear you to pieces.” But that didn’t make them less annoying. Those two did not sleep most of the night. At two in the morning, one of them snuck into my room, wagging its tail, expecting me to engage with him. Only because he belonged to my friend did I not tell him, “I’m a person and I can hurt you badly.” Instead, I showed him to the door and closed it as fast as I could.

The next morning, I asked my friend in the most non-passive-aggressive voice I could muster, “Why do they bark so much?”

“They don't bark,” was her answer, obviously forgetting the last 17 hours.

“What kind of selective hearing do you possess that I don’t?” I wanted to ask her. “How is it possible that the barking is not driving you crazy? Is it because the dogs are yours?”

I used to think that when babies cry it was mostly okay for their parents, and only for them, but this idea was quickly refuted when I had my own baby. Especially when I was on a twelve-hour flight and my baby kept the entire cabin awake with her crying. It was not okay, not for me, not for the people who sat around me and my baby and wished us all kinds of horrendous endings.

So I want to know what it is with dog owners who don’t hear their dogs barking? 

I have another friend whose dog barks every time a squirrel passes outside the house or a bird lands on the roof. When the mail delivery person drops the mail through the door slot, all hell breaks loose. So you can imagine how much barking goes on during the day. 

Her neighbors left a note on her door, she complained to me once, asking her to control the barking. She didn’t understand what they were talking about. Her dog hardly ever barks, she said. This woman, who claims she can hear Wi-Fi signals going through her house, cannot hear her dog’s incessant barking. She thinks her neighbors were making it up. 

“No, they’re not,” I dared to contradict her. “Your dog barks a lot.”

That was probably the meanest thing I ever said to her. 

It’s true that her dog doesn’t bark at me when I enter her house like those idiot rat terriers who barked their heads off when I came in. But her wolf dog mix barks at everything else. Every time I am on the phone with her, I can hear that dog barking in the background. Every single time! Sometimes during the call I ask her why her dog barks. She always has an explanation. But then, she forgets that I ever asked about it.

I recently found out that there is a plethora of bark control devices available online. So I am definitely not the only human who finds barking annoying.