I'm not a dog person. Never was. When we go to a friend or relative's house and they have a dog, I try to act as politely as I can without bursting out in a tantrum and totally freaking out about how the dog is close to my vicinity. Now don't get me wrong, I don't hate all dogs. I like my aunt's husky, and there's a few others I can think of. I just can't stand the ones that drool all over you, dig their claws into your legs, bark constantly, and stick their face in your crotch. I don't appreciate that none too much. I also take it as a sign that the dog's owner doesn't disipline it very well.

My dislike (fear?) of dogs may have stemmed from an early childhood incident... An aunt and uncle of mine picked up a BIG stray German sheperd when I was about 4 or 5 years old. They kept saying what a nice dog it was..... so long as you didn't touch it. Right.

They could've locked this thing in a room or put it in the back yard before the Easter party began, right? Wrong. They left it sitting smack-dab in the middle of the living room, with all kinds of children running around the house. Not too smart, especially considering childrens' natural curiousity and love for animals. I was playing with my cousins, and got wee bit too close, and the stupid animal attacked me and sunk its teeth into my arm. I know it could've been a lot worse, I'm so thankful it wasn't, but I still have a big ugly scar on my right upper-arm, and it hurt like blazes.

So now you understand why I flinch when people say "Oh don't worry! He's a nice dog!", because I was attacked by a nice dog.

I spent the night at a friend's house last year, and she has two dogs. One's a collie (I do like collies, but this one....drools. And jumps at you. Ugh.), and the other's a German sheperd. While they did keep the sheperd away from me most of the time, they just couldn't seem to understand why I was so fastidious when it was around. I think they thought it was funny, but hey, if I don't like dogs, I don't have to be around one, I just can't trust them!

Well I'm not sure why I just wrote all of that mess, for my main thought for this post is just about the dog next door, but oh well. I felt like complaining about something.

Our neighbors to the right of us are NOT good with animals. They once had a cat, she was the sweetest little thing, but they are so cheap (or just jackassed) that they simply refused to have her spayed. She had three litters of kittens in less than a year, at least four to each litter. I loved these kittens, but they were so pitiful. All of them weren't fed well, and loaded with fleas. One of my aunts took all of the kittens to the Humane Society over time, and I think she finally took the mother there too, because I haven't seen it in many months. I feel bad they're all gone, with uncertain fates, but I'm somewhat glad too because they were suffering, and I know once they grew up, they'd all be having kittens themselves.

I'm also glad they're gone because it was they who gave my poor baby cat fleas. LOTS of them. We fought these things for months, with no avail. We bought Hartz flea crap - it didn't work. Gave her a flea-bath - it didn't work ("I believe... no matter how hard you try, you can't baptize cats."). Put a flea collar on her - it didn't work. Then the eggs hatche d inside the house and brought more fleas (they were eating me alive, also). We finally splurged and bought top-notch (aka: expensive) "Advantage" flea treatment, which literally grabbed the fleas by the nose and kicked them in the ass. What a relief after so many months! They were falling off dead everywhere, thank the Lord. My poor baby had been constantly scratching until she bled, and lost a lot of weight too. No more!!!!!

Anyhoo, back to the neighbors. Apparently they've decided to try their hand in owning a dog. (They had a rabbit, before the cat, by the way). It is cute, no doubt - a little brown weiner dog, but they of course don't know how to take care of it either. They have an area between their house and the fence that they just leave the dog out there and won't let it in. Therefore, it starts barking hysterically, you know, that high-pitched "YIP YIP YIIIIIIIIP YIP YIP!" that just makes you wanna stick your finger into your brain through your eye and twirl it around a bit.

I can't stand it, but Dad is even worse. He used to go out there and just glare at it (as if "intimidating" it would make it shut up), but now he's taken to throwing small pieces of gravel at it. He doesn't hurt it, he just scares it and makes it go back into its dog-house and shut up. He does this on a regular basis, it's really quite humorous. We're both VERY light sleepers, so you can imagine how flustered we get, hearing this thing ten feet away from the side of our house at 2 A.M. The gravel has done the trick though. Dad even has a step-ladder set up near the fence for this sole task. But the dog is getting smart too - whenever Dad's big head appears over the top of the fence, it shuts up and hauls ass back to its dog-house. Sometimes he throws something at it anyway though, I guess that's his way of punishing it...

I'll stick with cats for the rest of my life.