Dog Not Gone

We've lived in non dog friendly neighborhoods in the past. We've had troubles with whiny neighbors that don't like the sound that comes out of a dog's mouth. I'd like to have a sign on my door that says "If you don't like the sound that comes out of my dog's mouth ~ take it up with God." You don't hear people saying " I wish that gold finch would SHUT UP!" Birds chirp. Or " Those cows moo ALL DAY LONG! " and then suggest you get your cows 'de - mooed' but there are always plenty of folks willing to knock on your door to complain about your dog barking and have several 'helpful' suggestions for how to make them stop barking. Guess what? Dogs bark. That's the sound they make when they want to communicate something - some , like some people, are better at communicating more often than others but I like my dogs to bark - especially when something or someone strange is lurking on our property. We were finally able to sell our house and move out of the dog unfriendly neighborhood and onto a road with owners of lots of dogs, lots of barking dogs, and lots of dogs that don't believe in fences or boundaries. This is terrific for us dog lovers, we do keep our dogs inside our property lines and they are not wanderers however, I think my dog Tinsel sent out invitations at the beginning of the week for some sort of gathering - or, maybe we're the coveted 'doggy hangout place' - either way, the dog in the top photo showed up sleeping in our garage on Monday and hasn't left. He sleeps on our porch, whines at the door to be let in and plays with our kids and dogs. He even barks at my husband when he comes home from work. He's adopted us. We don't know where he belongs.

Then tonight I go outside for some more firewood and here's another neighbor dog curled up next to our porch. She got up when I came out and seemed to be asking me if she could stay the night. I do know where this one belongs but she makes her rounds to all the neighbor's houses every day. The other night when the moon was out huge and bright - I heard our old dog barking from her doghouse - I flipped the porch light on to see neighbor dogs and cats running around like they were playing on our back lawn. I'm not going to do anything about it - I figure these neighbors put up with all of our dogs ' communicating' so I'm okay with being the fun house for the neighborhood dogs. As long as they don't take up chicken chasing!