One of the main reasons I’ve not posted here is my neighbor, the guy with the dog, monitors this weblog and acts as postmaster for his friends, downloading, forwarding and/or printing out this text and stressing out the neighbors in a sophomoric attempt to defend the indefensible: leaving his barking dog outside my bedroom. For four years, now, I’ve been posting here about this persistent barking and problems with the dog’s owner, an otherwise friendly guy who has become my Lex Luthor over what ought to be a relatively simple matter. Lately he’s taken to oblique threats of physical violence, screaming and cursing at me, demanding answers and explanations without allowing me to get even one word, I mean not one syllable, in edgewise. “How could you discuss this stuff in front of strangers?!” he shrieked at me, referring to you people who are, for the most part, strangers only to *him* (and, of course, his dog). Over the winter, he called the cops on me because I was yelling at his dog, which misses the point (1) yelling at dogs is not a crime and (2) if his dog wasn’t barking, I wouldn’t be yelling.

Dogs are pack animals. They don’t respond to mealy-mouthed pleas of nice-nice. If I want this dog to stop barking, and his master is not around—which is the main problem, this man leaving his loud animal unsupervised—I have to bark louder than he does. I explained this to my neighbor in better times, and he seemed to understand it. You can’t hurt a dog’s feelings. He’s a DOG. You communicate with dogs the way they communicate with each other: they obey the commands of the pack leader. I am not angry at the dog. I am not ridiculing the dog. I am not being “mean” to the dog. I am not, in any way harming the dog. I am communicating with his animal because the dog’s master has wandered off somewhere, leaving me in hell. Again.

Having not heard of the First Amendment, I suppose Dog Man’s (thus far successful) efforts at suppressing my free speech here are seen, somehow, by him as noble and virtuous. However, threatening me with violence over things I write happens to be against the law. A serious crime. I need to pause here and remind folks: this is about a barking dog. It’s not about race. Not about a bank robbery. Not about selling dope or blasting music or running hookers and bootleg cigarettes out the back door. This is about a barking dog. And Dog Man’s irrational hostility has escalated this mess to ridiculous extremes.

It occurs to me this would make a great comic book. I’m calling Kyle Baker. No, I’m serious. I mean it.

Here’s a crude diagram designed to help explain why I and I alone seem to be having a problem with the dog’s barking. Click to enlarge:

Meet The Neighbors
This is a great dog. I have absolutely no grudge against the dog himself. It’s easy to see why he’s so attached to him: this is the world’s greatest dog. I mean it, he should be wearing a cape. He’s friendly, he’s playful, he’s a giant puppy. I’ve been driving around, for two years now, with tennis balls and chew toys and doggie snacks which I’ve been prohibited from giving to him (Dog Man has asked me not to give him snacks, and the chew toy things require monitoring, which, of course, defeats the purpose of giving a dog a chew toy).

The dog means absolutely no harm to anyone (except, perhaps, the squirrels; but he’s never actually harmed one of them, either). This is not about the dog. This is about the dog owner. Who is, otherwise, himself a man of excellent character and integrity. I mean, this is the neighbor everybody imagines when they think of Fred The Neighbor. Great sense of humor, always willing to pitch in, takes care of his family, looks after the seniors on the block. This is a guy I otherwise admire, the kind of square-jaw family man boys want to grow up to be.

I can’t, for the life of me, explain his irrationality where this dog is concerned. I mean, if you met him, you’d enjoy talking to him. Enjoy hanging out with him. But, after enjoying being with him and hanging out with him, you’d retire to your adjacent homes and he’d dump his huge, barkity-bark dog outside your bedroom window, get in his van and drive away. I mean it, it’s like a bad CW sitcom.

Ghosts
It is difficult to describe just how loud this dog is. Recordings don’t do it, you all have to jump on a plane and come out here, sit in my office and hear this for yourself. I don’t have many visitors at my home, but those who have been here (or telephoned) have, every one of them, commented on how egregiously loud this animal is. Allowing him in the alley between our homes causes a funnel effect that has his mega-bark amplified by the building walls and echoing for *blocks* away.

Ever had some kid sneak up behind you and scream BOO! in your ear, startling you and nearly giving you a heart attack? This is what I live with every single day here.

The dog can be completely quiet for long stretches, and then WOOFWOOFWOOFWOOF, which startles the hell out of you. I mean, one minute I’m either writing in my office or maybe grabbing a nap (which is typically impossible because of this. I usually write at night to avoid the barking; I can’t sleep during the day because of the dog barking, so I’m always sleep-deprived and cranky), and from dead silence CANNON FIRE jolts you out of your skin. Living here means being at red alert at all times, not only because the dog is barking but because I know he ‘s *out there,* right outside my bedrooms (one of them is my office), and you *know* that loud crap could start at any moment.

So you’re in fight-or-flight mode all day all the time, nervous, stressed. And now at risk for heart attack and stroke, medicated for high blood pressure I’d never had before this constant stress over the dog. Other neighbors may faintly hear the dog but are not experiencing this because of how the houses are aligned (see diagram), and because the dog’s favorite spot seems to be right outside my window.

Lessons
I used to sit here and wonder what this poor man was going through that would make him so inflexible and irrational about this very simple and easily correctable problem. I used to wonder why, after seven years of living next to me, this man ALWAYS insists on seeing and believing the very worst about me. Why he always jumps to the most paranoid and ridiculous conclusions and simply insists I’m some terrible human being.

I no longer live inside his head, no longer try and sympathize or struggle to see his point of view. This man is simply behaving like a moron. *Why* he’s being a moron is someone else’s problem. But this business has taught me a bunch of very painful lessons:

Lesson One: This Guy Is Not My Friend
A friend doesn’t treat a friend the way I’ve been consistently treated. If one of Dog Man’s *friends* on the block complained about his dog, he’s likely turn handstands fixing the problem. Me, he calls a liar and shows contempt and hostility.

Lesson Two: Dog Man’s Friends Are Not My Friends, Either
People close to Dog Man tend to get their information about and form their opinions of me based on what Dog Man tells them. They do not engage me, they do not call me, they do not stop by. They do not ask my side of the story or, even better, just remain neutral. They know, and know without a doubt—and have *told me*—that Dog Man’s dog is a nuisance barker. Yet they apparently believe whatever irrational nonsense Dog Man tells them about me and, without ever getting my side of it, take DM at his word and suddenly I’m Jeffrey Dahmer or the UnaBomber or something.

Real friends aren’t always so quick to believe the very worst about you. If this fair weather childish behavior is their idea of friendship, they can keep it.

Lesson Three: True Christian Ethics Cannot Compete With Christian Myth
Here, I am often competing against Christian Myth: the embedded fairy-tale notions people have about what a Christian should be. These are the Christian expectations of people who don’t know Christ. Who don’t go to church. Whose notion of what a Christian should be were formed for either childhood experience, bedtime stories, or Della Reese on Touched By An Angel.

Christian myth says a Christian should be passive and perfect, never losing his temper, having no faults, and putting up with all the bullshit anyone ever wants to sling at him. There is absolutely no biblical model for this interpretation of Christian ethics and behavior. Peter, the first Pope, was pretty much an asshole. The Apostle Paul was likely gay, and was most definitely an asshole. Where folks get this Christians-are-supposed-to-be-perfect nonsense from is a mystery to me. Christians are just like Buddhists and Jews and Muslims and Taoists and Scientologists and people who park dogs the size of nuclear subs outside someone’s bedroom and then blame the *neighbor* when he complains about it. Christians are not perfect. The word “Christian,” which is itself not biblical, denotes a follower of Christ. Following Christ does not make you perfect. Does not protect you from losing your temper. Following Christ does not imply you are, voila! as perfect as Christ Himself was.

All it means is we’re trying. Just like everybody else.

Lesson Four: Read The Fine Print
My main principal for not availing myself of legal remedies has been Paul’s admonition against lawsuits in I Corinthians 6. It is a shameful thing for Christians to have to involve the state in settling their affairs. But, here, Paul is talking about Christians suing Christians over matters of the church. Availing myself of the legal process to resolve matters of overt harassment and physical threat is an entirely different matter.

Scorecard
I’ve put up with this crap for *years* because I believe it’s insane that two grown, divorced men living next door to one another can’t solve something as simple as a barking dog. But, what has this college education taught me?

(1) Showing love and compassion to this guy in order to keep our friendship has resulted in not only our friendship dissolving anyway, but his campaigning up and down the block, turning other neighbors against me. Which means the guy was never my friend in the first place. Waste of time.

(2) Showing restraint in order to demonstrate the love of Jesus Christ to this man, waste of time. His choices suggest he interprets restraint as cowardice, fear or perhaps weakness. He thinks I’m afraid of him. Waste of energy.

Dog Man’s consistent response has been one of hostility and aggression, making this about how I keep my backyard or how I’m badmouthing the neighbors on my blog. I let my backyard go because Dog Man won’t allow me to use it. I used to sit back there and read, pray, watch TV, nap. I can’t go into my own back yard now because his dog is always barking, so what’s the point? When I can start using my own back yard again, I’ll be happy to make it a showplace. If he won’t give me any peace in my own home, let him eat weeds.

And So
God wants us to be at peace with one another (Romans 12:18). I want nothing more than to live in peace with everybody, most especially a guy I share a fence with. The provocation, the accusations, threats and harassment, however, are completely one-sided. Other than my whining about it here, there is nothing this man can point to to say I’ve in any way provoked or harassed him. All I’ve asked is all I’ve ever asked: can I please have some peace and quiet in my own home?

Where things go from here is entirely and completely up to him. I’d like to stop whining about it as much as he’d like to stop reading about it, here. There’s a simple way to do that, and it’s entirely in his hands.

Between now and then, I’ll say what I please. If what I say bothers you, DM, there’s a simple solution to that, too.