MY BARKING DOG

Whenever my dog barks, we get all agitated and get her inside right away because we don't want her bothering the neighbors. This is strange because our neighbors don't actually complain about the dog barking. Our one next-door neighbor did a couple of years ago, via email, but it wasn't a nasty email and since then they've gotten a dog themselves and are completely at ease about things, so there really is no trouble with the neighbors. The neighbor on the other side has three dogs and they make a racket sometimes but we don't get bent out of shape about them at all.

So I'm not sure why we get all agitated about the dog barking, but I'm the worst one of all about it. I curse the dog and swear that today will be the day I finally murder the dog, and I tell the dog that later on, if I remember, I will kill the dog with great brutality, but I never do; she is so cute I couldn't hurt a hair on her head.

There is a grade school behind our house and people walk back there sometimes and the dog completely loses her shit about it. She's part cocker-spaniel and part beagle. The beagle part of her apparently makes her louder than she should be. She raises quite a racket and we're so paranoid about disturbing the neighbors for no reason at all.

I can't wait for that dog to pass on naturally so I don't have to get off my fat ass anymore and let her in. Or let her out. Or let her in after she's out. Or let her out when she's in. Where the hell is she going anyway? Doesn’t she realize I'm watching TV / looking at Internets / reading / writing / playing video games?

Winter is worse because when she's out there barking, and refuses to come in when called, I have to haul my ass out there, sometimes barefoot, to get her back in. This is super-annoying. I swore before we got her we would never get a dog, but that was when the girls were in kindergarten or whatnot, and you can't tell kids that age you won't get them a dog because dogs are a pain in the ass.

But I love that dog. Every day I swear to her I will murder her, but she's just so cute. She's my little baby. God-damn friggin' dog.