There are TONS of dogs in our neighborhood. Driving down the street to get to my house, I pass by all my unmet neighbors working in their yards or fiddling around in their garages, their dogs calmly by their sides. I see them walking their dogs pleasantly down our sidewalks and stopping to talk to their neighbor while the dog relieves himself quietly near the mailbox. They gather with their leashed dogs in front of people's houses and talk about whatever neighbors talk about.
It's all very Wisteria Lane, except the houses are smaller, much closer together and have LSU-abilia somewhere along the front.
You see, we have an electric gate that closes the fenced-in backyard off in the middle of the driveway. However, the stationary post that the gate meets when it closes rotted, and the dipshits who replaced it did not dig up the broken post, they just put a NEW post in front of that one. The gate meets NOTHING when it closes, and Murpy can happily squeeze his ass between our gate and the neighbor's house and run his little Gestapo self all down the street.
In theory, when I let Murphy out of the back door, I shouldn't have to stand watch over him because he should be completely confined to our driveway and fenced backyard.
Unless, as has already occurred, someone (my husband) leaves the electric gate open and Murphy barrels down the driveway and around the corner. It will add a touch of desperation to this story when I tell you that Murphy chases cars. He has gotten Corey hit by a car, and he himself has run face first into a rolling tire as he gave chase to the car attached to it. So for Murphy to go bounding down the driveway and out of sight around the corner, up the main street of our subdivision with me locked behind the electric gate in my white nightgown lends an ominous distinction to a sunny morning in our new neighborhood.
On that particular morning, by the time I came back in the house, threw on some clothes and got out the front door, he was three blocks up. Every move I made toward him inspired a game of chase. By the glory of God no cars came through while I lured him the three blocks back to our house and seethed at him until Corey got him, whereupon I threw my fury at him for leaving the gate open.
Murphy is not a vicious dog. He just barks all the time. When cars drive by. When horns honk on TV. When thunder rumbles. He's very social, and everybody is automatically his friend. It would be like a little kid who sees you, runs up to you at full force, stops just before he runs smack into your face and screams "HIIIIIIIIII" at you the whole time he's running in your direction.
Penny, the Dachshund across the street, does not care for this welcome at all. And Lucy, her new baby Schipperke sister, went dashing into the house and would not come back out into her own yard when I took Murphy over to meet them last week. We haven't seen them outside since.
And then, to my delight, today he chased a baby.
Did you say "baby"?
Yes, a baby.
There was a little blond child in an LSU romper, about 18-months old, walking with his mother down the street. Unfortunately, they crossed our driveway, behind what would appear to be the safety of a closed electric gate, unless the Cocker Spaniel who resided there could fit between the gate and the post and made a loud, barking, mad dash out of the gate and in your direction.
And there was the Cocker Spaniel's mother, on the other side of the gate, with no means to open it from where she was, in her white nightgown, fresh off a late Saturday night slumber.
I ran through the house and came out the front, calling him and squeaking his favorite toy toward him. I was too scared to go put clothes on and run out into the street. The baby had started to cry and his mother was walking him back from whence he came, but the louder he cried, the more worked up Murphy got, and that little sonofabitching dog gave chase. I was too scared to take my eyes off him to go put on clothes. So I stood on my porch and called him and squeaked until he finally came, once the baby had gone back into his house.
I have to call the contractor to come out and charge me a couple hundred dollars to remove the broken post and relocate the Official Post to a spot that will actual prohibit Murphy from leaping out into the road, jumping on top of dogs who are smaller than him, chasing the ten full-size SUVs and pickup trucks on our double dead-end street and making my neighbors think he's going to eat the faces off their babies.
We know Murphy just wants to knock them to the ground and lick their teeth, the same as he does to the tiny people who live in his house.
If I'm that baby's mother, I'm not going to risk the delicate skin of my toddler to give you a chance to prove your dog won't eat my baby.
I'm probably also going to call Animal Control to come pick up your clearly rabid dog.
We don't have friends in our neighborhood.
We may never.
.....
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