Dogs who bark in the night - and any other time
Owners need to be aware that their pets need training and that an intelligent dog should not be left on its own for several hours each day
The most hated dog on our soi has to be Mee. As I’ve mentioned in other columns, this part-chow, owned by my neighbour J, isn’t a bad dog. She’s certainly beautiful, a deep rust colour, and she’s very intelligent.
J once hired a personal trainer for Mee, and within minutes, the dog learned to sit, stay, fetch, but the trainer wasn’t able to teach her, “Come!”
Mee is so huge that it’s doubtful that one person could restrain her anyway if she wants to go somewhere – and what Mee wants, she usually gets.
Most of the time, Mee’s strength of purpose is a problem for J and her sister – and no one else’s. The only problem we have with Mee is her barking.
Mee barks at anyone or anything: birds, cats, people passing the gate, a plastic bag blowing in the wind down the street.
Her bark is sonorous. Arising from deep in her huge chest, it echoes around the soi, especially inside my house since I’m next door. While Mee barks, conversation in my house stops, because we simply can’t talk over all this noise.
This barking isn’t Mee's fault either. J leaves her alone in the patio for hours each day and doesn’t realise how much Mee barks. When J’s home, the dog still barks but not so much, except at night. Then, J goes upstairs to her bedroom, where she sleeps in airconditioned comfort. With her door closed, she still doesn’t know how much noise Mee makes.
Poor Mee is one bored dog. She’s too intelligent to be left alone for six or seven hours. She also desperately needs a place where she can run, not just walk sedately on a lead, but without having been trained to socialise with other dogs, it’s not likely any dog run in Bangkok would accept her.
Neighbours, however, generally moderate their complaints, accepting that Mee’s deep barks are an effective means of discouraging burglars, but we are all annoyed, without any way to help J and Mee.
For J considers her dog perfect with just a few minor failings. Talk to her about training, and she simply shrugs her shoulders and smiles. “I don’t know anything about training a dog,” she says.
With this problem, I’m made aware, yet again, how restricted we are in urban conditions, that is, if you want to be a good neighbour. It doesn’t matter if your house shares a wall with your neighbour’s house, as in my soi, or if you live in an area where houses are metres apart.
What you do where you live affects how your neighbours live.
Of course, thoughtless people can be found anywhere, whether in an upmarket area or not, idiots who let their dogs run wild and disturb the neighbours, or worse.
I’d like to think that the situation will improve, but I doubt if the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) will ever send around a mobile truck with an expert dog trainer to train people how to control their animals.
What a dream – a full-service mobile clinic, to provide vaccinations, sterlisations and lots and lots of training for the owners, not the dogs.
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