Thursday, February 19, 2009

Neighbors

Twice a day, like clockwork.

So I made a mistake this morning. Otto and I had just come to the end of our walk and I let him off leash, as I always do, at the top of my street. (For those of you who don't know, it's a quiet dead end street). As soon as I let him off leash Otto went running as fast as he could into my neighbor's yard. Now, he always runs top speed into into my next door neighbor's yard because there used to be a cat there complete with cat food and he'd race back there to eat as much food as he could before I yelled at him. Now the cat is gone (the neighbor too) but he still runs back there full speed out of habit, then runs right back out. But, the yard he chose this morning was a yard he never goes into. I 'hiss' yelled at him a couple times and slammed his leash into their retaining wall (that actually works) but he didn't come. Then I noticed he was kind of circling, so I thought, oh no, he's going to poop. I walked a few more steps down the hill and I heard some scratching on my neighbors porch. I was about head height with their retaining wall so I peered up and saw my neighbor come out to her porch.

I immediately said, 'is he pooping?' and then walked up to her yard to clean it up. On my way into her yard, I tried to be friendly. I made some joke about how we had just been on a 20 minute walk and I didn't see why he couldn't have taken care of it then. She didn't say a word. She just stood there and stared at me the entire time I was looking for, then picking up the dog poop. When I turned around, she was still standing on the porch glaring at me. Perhaps she thought if she didn't stand there and keep an eye on me, I would just walk away without cleaning it up. I looked at her and said 'have a nice day', smiled and walked off. Never did I get a response.

Now I fully admit, I was in the wrong. My dog was off leash, in her yard, pooping. But, I apologized, took care of it immediately, and tried to be friendly about the whole thing. And it's not like Otto poops on her yard frequently - I'm pretty sure this was the first time. But she made me feel like, well, like dog dooky. And I thought it was pretty unnecessary. There was no reason for her not to be neighborly. We do live across the street from one another.

And at least my trees didn't take down her electric wires leaving her without power or heat for 10 days. Her trees did that two years ago. Something for which she NEVER APOLOGIZED or even really acknowledged!!!! Not that I'm holding a grudge or anything. That would be unneighbourly.

2 comments:

Wiz-EL said...

When/why did you take that photo?

Anonymous said...

I'm with Eben--gross--I had to scroll past the picture to focus on the text. You have charming neighbors: the ones who abuse their dog by leaving it chained up barking at all times, the one who left the cat to torment you, and this sub-human who can't speak.

sc