Friday, July 28, 2006

Monster Dog

Smokey, the Monster Dog.  That's his new title.  It's summertime and there is a pack of wild dogs roaming around the neighborhood at night.  Smokey tries his hardest to defend the yard from the onslaught of canine marauders by barking non-stop through the night.  I try to be a good neighbor by stopping him but it doesn't do much because there are a bunch of dogs in the yard barking anyways. 

Because the power situation is bad, I closed the front balcony door to lessen the noise of the KPS generator across the street.  Smokey doesn't like that because the front balcony is his first line of defense.  So he bangs on the door handle until it goes down and steals through the door.  I usually put my desk chair in front of the handle to prevent him from going out so he starts to run from the door to the bed, staring me down as I try to sleep and challenging me to get up and let him outside.  Last night I lost the fight despite the fact that I left the back balcony door open for him to go outside.

I can't sleep while Smokey is outside barking at the wild dogs so I bring him inside the house and put on his muzzle.  It doesn't prevent him from barking or drinking water, it just makes it harder for him to get out a full aggressive Get-Out-Of-My-Yard bark.  I guess he didn't like that because this morning when I tossed my luggage in the car, I started noticing a strange but familiar smell.  Either marking his territory in the house or revenge for putting on the muzzle, Smokey peed all over the front of my dive gear bag.  Monster!