I really, really, really hate stupid people.Especially stupid people who don't know they are stupid - even when you are informing them of that very fact.
This lovely lady to the right is our young dog, Patsy (she and her sister, Edina - or Eddie, more commonly - were named for a famous British comic duo whose names should already be in your conversational lexicon or you are really on the wrong blog).
Patsy is hyper, super-friendly and loves other dogs. She's very excitable and tends to bark at them when they walk by our house.
Being considerate persons, we are trying to teach her to not bark so much or for so long. We understand she is marking her boundaries while simultaneously saying, "Hi there! I'd like to stick my nose up your butt!"
So, when dog folks walk by, I try to get out and talk to her and have her sit and be still until the other dog passes. And Patsy is smart - she knows when she is doing what's been asked of her - or not. And she'll skulk around knowing she's been a naughty girl when I reproach her after a barking episode.
And the dog walkers seem to understand and appreciate what we are trying to accomplish. They know and we know that we already have more than our fair share of untrained, uncontrolled yip-yappers and barkers that are left untended to bark for hours on end, making it impossible to hear on the phone, concentrate on work, or perform outdoor activities for fear of further setting them off.
Even the retarded camouflage-clad lummox down the street understood it after we asked him not to stand there with his huge-ass German Shepherd on the other side our hedge, taunting Patsy into a hyper-psychotic whirlwind of barking and garden trampling destruction.
Unfortunately...
...there continues to be one resident of our little enclave who is apparently as dumb as a post. We don't know her name but she has a black Labrador whom we shall call "Chardonnay" who apparently hates everyone and everything. Our neighbor across the street has warned us off approaching Chardonnay as she had tried to disembowel her hapless (and under-trained) Springer Spaniel.
Our back yard sits catercorner to Chardonnay's back yard. And we are treated regularly to her owner's folk music gatherings where socially stunted white people in their 50s gather to play Guatemalan folk music and protest songs, and drink herbal teas.
She walks Chardonnay regularly (as other dog owners up and down the street whisk their canines and felines indoors to avoid potential disembowelment) and rarely fails to pause and talk to Patsy and Eddie as Patsy barks and yips and loses her mind.
We've asked her owner to not do that, to move on, to help us in our training by not taunting Patsy with Chardonnay. We've explained that her devil dog makes Patsy nuts for some odd reason - and she continues to stand there, baby talking and telling Chardonnay and Patsy how alike they are and that they should be friends...
Good thing I don't believe in firearms.
But today was it. The proverbial last straw.
I was working away in the home office and heard a major racket coming from the back yard.
Upon reaching the scene, I found Patsy running wildly back and forth, jumping and barking - trampling plants and herbs in her frenzy. Somewhere amidst the frenetic activity, I also heard snarling.
As I called to Patsy and tried to calm her down, Senorita Estupida is talking to me, explaining that she thought if they could meet each other and become friends, Patsy wouldn't bark so much at her. So she walked Chardonnay up to the fence line so they could sniff each other become friends.
Meanwhile, her dog is gnashing and foaming at the mouth, trying to get at Patsy and her tasty insides through the fence and Patsy is leaping and climbing - at times very near the top of the fence.
I yelled at la Estupida that she was not making things better and needs to get her dog away - that she is provoking Patsy unnecessarily.
And Chardonnay continued with her Cujo impression.
To my AMAZEMENT - she then brought Cujo UP MY DRIVEWAY and up to the GATE.
"Let them sniff each other and they'll be friends!" said the dementoid.
In my pajamas and bare feet, running to catch both of our dogs - Eddie has now joined the barking frenzy - I am by now screaming at the woman that she needs to STEP AWAY with her devil dog. That she has no idea what damage she is doing - both to our training and to the back patio.
Patsy and Eddie are now straining - trying to squeeze under the gate - which is a thin wood picket, now flexing under the weight of two frenzied canines. I could picture the fragile wood snapping and blood and fur flying.
Senorita Estupida continues to babble about why she doesn't understand what their problem is and says we should bring our dogs over for a play date with Chardonnay - she has a fenced yard and they'd all become lovely friends.
Meanwhile, flecks of Chardonnay foam are reaching 6 feet as they sail over the gate and I literally have my two girls by the collars - one in each hand - elevated off the ground as they claw and scrabble and bark, pulling them back from certain destruction.
"Let me know if you want a play date sometime," she says, as I drag my dogs up the stairs and into the house - she and her demon-dog still standing and foaming stupidly near my back gate.
"NOT ON YOUR LIFE!" I scream at her as I hurl my dogs into the sun porch.
"Okay - bye! See you later!!" she says in a cheery manner and begins to walk down the drive.
I shrieked.
Not your garden-variety horror movie surprise shriek - but a desperate I-don't-believe-this-is-happening-to-me keening wail, having your soul sucked out of your body kind of shriek.
Kind of like Donald Sutherland at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
It was all I could think to do.
As she headed down the street, the rabid Chardonnay tugging at her bonds...
...she cheerily and simply waved.
