A Letter

Dear backyard(ish) neighbor,

I am a dog lover. My husband and I have two gigantic beasts with which to prove this point. Their names are Turbo and Scout and we lovingly refer to them as our children (though not to be confused with our human children, at times which act worse than our non-human ones but we'll leave that for another letter). I completely get why people want and buy dogs. I also completely understand why some people buy dogs for other purposes than to keep around the house, give treats to and laugh at when they take up more space on the couch than their son and they do nothing about it because it's just so cute. Some of these reasons might be for farming and guarding. I'm going to assume that your reason for purchasing and owning this breed is for the latter. I'm not going to lie, I think it's a bit cruel to leave your animal outside all day without ever bringing them inside (I mean we do live in Hotter-than-Hell Hundred boasting WF {which is next weekend and I *think* President George W might be riding in it}), but you are the master of your domain and I'm not going to tell you what to do-to an extent.

You see dear backyard(ish) neighbor, I love my sleep. More importantly I love my children's sleep. And when I am actually home, at night, and get to sleep in the same bed, at the same time that my husband is sleeping, I really would like to stay asleep. Unfortunately this monumental feat can not occur when your* non-human offspring are left out all night and thus bark and howl at the flutter of a leaf.

*these could possibly be another backyard(ish) neighbor's clansdogs, but for the sake of this letter we'll just say that they are, in fact, yours.

The dominoe effect of your brood barking and whining comes thru my doors and windows, which then causes my two, precious non-human children to whine. And if that whining and scurrying about gets loud enough, my two human children wake up.

I'm not sure if you have human children or not (I'm gonna go with not since there is no way that children sleeping mere feet from the ruckus that is enclosed in your backyard every night could in fact, sleep) but when these angels wake from slumber in the middle of the night it is neither fun nor easy to put their cherub cheeks back on the pillow and pass a spell to make their eyes close again. This recipe also leaves a mother tending to her sheep while her dear husband snores and hogs more of the now available sheets.

So you see, you, by way of your actions in letting your {sigh} dogs stay outside all night long are in effect ruining the peace and order of my nighttime house. I would appreciate and swift and immediate fix of this problem or else I might be forced to stick my head out the back door and yell like your other backyard(ish) neighbors have done for the past few nights.

Thank you for your time.

Respectfully,
Your other backyard(ish) neighbor who hasn't been screaming at you