The neighbour's dog

Look, for the most part he’s a lovely dog. One of those oafish, friendly Labrador-Golden Retriever type pooches. He enjoys his home and often likes to partake in the neighbourhood canine conversation. Which is fine, except he chooses to place his doggy soapbox by the fence right underneath our gorgeous girl’s bedroom window.

So I’m playing sounds of the Serengeti to our little world child as she drifts off into peaceful bliss land and he’s lecturing the pups down the road on the current state of the economy. Or that’s what it sounds like, I don’t really understand dog language that well. 

He obviously can’t stand anyone disagreeing with him either ‘cause whenever one of his pals in the street has something to say he feels compelled to shout it right back at them. But ten times louder.

I have to confess though, whilst pretty freaking annoying, it doesn’t affect me the way that it did while I was pregnant. For some reason the hormones turned me into a hyper sensitive sound detector. I would be sitting in the lounge cooking my little bundle of life (AKA sitting on the couch part way between snooze and watching the Bold & The Beautiful - or Huey’s Kitchen, I can’t remember) and he’d let out of one of his flustered and emphatic speeches regarding the US dog dollar. I would catch myself mid sentence yelling (you know when you yell but you gradually get slower and quieter as you realise you sound totally crazy?), “Shut your f$#king dog up or I’ll…BE GIVING him A…‘SPECIAL’… meal.” Now that’s not nice. Especially when I really like our neighbours. (I tried to write that like it sounded. I’m not sure it translates.)

Then there’s the other embarrassing issue I’m sure he doesn’t want me to talk about. His neuroses for his owner.  Whenever the familiar ute pulls up into the driveway (also conveniently placed under the above mentioned window) he bursts into fits of “OMG!!! I TOTALLY can’t believe you’re home!!! my life has changed forever!!! just come play with me right now!!!!”

Don’t get the wrong impression; this is no man-dog bark. These are shrillish, desperate, lady-dog screams. No dog his size could possibly be proud of that. I’m embarrassed for him. Imagine what the other dogs think?

But you know what? Most of the time the little mini person upstairs just sleeps through it. So chill out Mum. The dog can bark. Maybe she just dreams about lions and giraffes that sound like lady-dogs? And she also learns a hell of a lot about doggy dollars while she’s at it.

The other day he caused quite the kerfuffle. Out of nowhere amidst the familiar barks and chatter he introduced a new, much more manlier sound - the growl. I was a mixture of regular annoyance that mini munch was trying to sleep upstairs and joy ridden pride that our furry friend had discovered his manhood. 

Until I looked over the fence to see what was going on. 

Mr Macho was standing there gripped with fear as a teency, tiny baby bird lay confused and frightened on the ground in front of him. I'm not sure how Tweety got there but she certainly was NOT feeling the love. 

It was time for me to take control of the situation.

I coaxed and comforted Mr T, congratulating him on his find and reassuring him that everything was going to be just fine. As he edged closer to the fence to hear more about how fabulous he was, Tweety looked at me with a twinkle in her eye and made the slow mo dash to the bushes under the fence. It was that way you walk when you're playing What's The Time Mr Wolf? and you have to make as much ground as possible but be ready to freeze at any given moment. She did it well. 

Before I could finish my speech of "You're so clever, yes you are. Yes you are." Tweets had disappeared off into a fort of foliage, hopefully never to be seen again by our canine captor. 

Crisis confusion averted and Doggy Wall Street was back in business barking up a stock market storm. 

True to form babycakes slept her way right on through it. 

(I must stop lacing her milk with whiskey.)

(Of course I'm kidding.)

(p.s. how ridiculous is that picture I found?!)