Barking at the moon and the trees and......

A bit of background first.

I am a true animal lover extraordinaire. I have fostered dogs, rats, cows, sheep and pretty much everything else. (Yes rats is correct. I don't do cats.)

My locale of choice is in the country and I currently throw buckets full of money at 3 cows, 4 ostriches, 6 pigs, 2 llamas and a shitload of ducks. (some mine and some just friends sleeping over. :)

My dad was a canine RCMP police officer so I come by this trait quite easily.

I am also the person you see crossing the street to pet a puppy or spending 'free time' at the local SPCA just playing around with man's supposed best friend.

Now for the story:

When Freddy and I got together, he expressed a life-long yearning to own a 'Komondor' puppy.

Komondors are very rare and also pretty pricey. (As is all the things we seem to want)

And of course, being the fulfiller of dreams that I am, I go on the big bad web to find my love said puppy.

4 months later including 4 plane rides and a trip to Seattle Seatac airport, we have our 'gem' of a dog. I might add as well that I was interrogated big-time by some guy at the freaking border over this puppy and almost had to sell youngest child to get said mutt accross the line.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we chose the pick of the litter female of this species and she was a cute as a button. We were so much in love.

Fast-track 9 months and I am currently wanting to take her and string her up from the highest tree that I can find and rip her freaking vocal-cords out.

She barks at trees. She barks at birds. She barks at the grass lazily moving in the breeze. THIS FREAKING DOG barks at everything.

We live on 5 acres of property. Our neighbours are pissed and we cannot sleep at night .

So, I start on a mission trying to curb my 'lovely' dog of her habit.

I get a pet-cetera frequent sucker card and blow through 700.00 in de-barking collars faster than I can go through a box of wine. What happended? ABSOLUTELY FREAKING NOTHING. Well except her having a nice collar on while barking.

I take her to TNT dog training. (notice the mention of dynamite in the training academy of choice?)

What happended there you ask?

We got kicked out cause 'barking dog' was barking at mirror that was to be used to make sure all was well in class.

We both got deemed 'disruptive' and out the door we go.

By this point, all neighbours are getting choked and I'm resorting to feeding 1/2 sacks of beer to my spca buddies who are coming to the house. No need to actually know how to get here really. Our address is almost gps'd into their bloody trucks at this point.

So, last night I made the choice to have my show-quality komondor puppy 'de-barked.'

What is de-barking?

Readers digest version is as follows:

1. Put dog to sleep.
2. Cut vocal cords.
3. Wake 'now silent' dog up.

Strangely, I have no ill feelings about doing this either.

The barking will stop. (at least for awhile. How can they NOT guarantee this shit?)

At this point, I'd pay $ 500.00 freaking dollars a year to have this done.

Silence is golden. I thrive on it in the country.

Call me cruel and inhumane. (please check though whether I've saved 84 or 85 dog's lives. I cannot remember anymore.)

Either way, it saves her from being permanently put to sleep and allows us to finally sleep at night.