Welcome To The Neighborhood

I'm sitting here doing some work on my company website and the doorbell rings... it's 11:51pm. Of course I'm weary, nobody rings our doorbell at midnight on a Sunday night. Of course the kids are asleep and both the German Shepards are FREAKING out and barking and all that. Luckily (so far) my kids are still sleeping.

It was the police. Yeah. So at least I didn't have to defend my house from robbers or other random people in a small neighborhood outside the city :) Well, he tells me a "neighbor" called them to tell us we leave our dogs out all night long...barking.

So, first I question this... I look around and say "well, they're um... " (how do you say it nicely to a cop) "...they're inside, as you can see." He gives me that "yeah, but I have to make the routine call" type look as if it was obvious I don't keep the dogs out all night long. I said "well, they're loud, and we do let them out at night to go to the bathroom and such." And, yes, they bark at the darkness...they're dumb. That's all I can say.

So he leaves with a thanks and apologizes for making so much noise with the whole dog barking thing. He was nice about it, can't blame him for making a call when he was told to.

But, oddly enough, we had new neighbors move in next door. Now, our dogs are outside around 10:00 to 11:00 or so at night (unless it's winter) and they relax out on the porch and such. I'm not sure what constitutes "all night" but this has been the routine for years. Now, I've got four neighbors around me that would make such a call, all have lived here for 3+ years (some, as long as us) and never had a problem.

Yet, the ones on our left moved in last week. Coincidence? I don't think so.

Maybe I'll "make the call" next week to tell the cops their kids are talking too loud in the lawn. Hmm....

Odd that this happens, because we had our neighborhood expanded down the road so there is a bit more additional traffic (like maybe 2 cars an hour instead of 1) but last winter we had someone call the cops to complain that we leave our dogs out all day in the winter.

What the fuck is with "all" in these terms. Yeah, we put our dogs outside in the winter...they're German Fucking shepards. They love it. They bury themselves in the snow and jump and play because it's the only time during the year they don't sweat their asses off when they're outside. Yet, we let them play outside for a few hours and that justifies the cops showing up because we don't care for our dogs and leave them in the "harsh winter all night long."

A few people need to mind their damn business and look for trouble somewhere else. I'm sure, someone in the city has 6,000 cats their not feeding in a small appartment somewhere. Leave us the hell alone.