A Gutful of Dog!

I’d just settled down in bed and getting comfy when the front door bell went off!

“Damn,” I thought.

“Who the Devil is that at this hour of the night.”

I nudged the Missus into consciousness. “There`s someone at the door Lovey.”

“Huh?”

“The door, there`s someone at our front door.” I knew that I wasn`t getting anywhere, so I decided to get out of bed and investigate.

My thoughts were filled with forboding…..I mean, was it the harbinger of ill tidings that stood on my front portals?

I slipped on a dressing gown and my slippers, and headed down the passage.

Without making a sound, I peeped through that blessed little peephole set in the oak panel of our knotty pine front door.

“Aha!” The spider spider stuck in the lens mechanism wiggled its legs.

“Who`s there?” I called through the woodwork, expecting the worse.

“Me!” came back the reply.

A witty remark if ever there was one, for I knew that there were millions of ‘me’s’ out there somewhere.

I stuck the chain into its groove and lifted the latch, then slowly opened the door.

My neighbour across the road, stood at the threashold of my house wearing pyjamas and a nasty look.

“If you don’t stop your bloody dog from barking, I’m calling the police!”

Of course, I was taken aback. That kind of belligerance at half eleven at night is all you need to ensure you don’t get any sleep at all.

“I haven’t got a dog.” I announced truthfully.

My neighbour scratched his head.

“No dog?”

“No dog.”

“Then whose dog is it…it never stops its yapping.

I stuck my head outside the door and listened. “I can’t hear a dog.”

“No….he’s not barking now.”

Honestly, there we were exchanging friendly remarks at quarter to twelve at night about a dog that wasn’t barking!”

“Good night,” I say at last. “I’ll keep my weather ear open for that dog, and thanks a ton!”

Getting back to bed, try as I may, I just couldn’t sleep. The fact that the dog in question had ceased to bark was worrying.

My mind was in turmoil,

“What had happened to the poor mutt,” I kept asking myself.

For the third time, I sat bolt upright in bed, my ears pricked and listening for just the slightest sign of a bark.

“Nothing!”

“Have a good night?” asked the Missus on the following morning.

“No I ruddy well didn’t….after our neighbour called, I spent all night listening out for a dog that stopped barking.”

“I heard him!”

“You did?” My heart did a somersault.

“Yes…..but you were fast asleep, yap…yap…yap, it drove me to distraction!”

I have a notion that these `phantom’ type non-barking dogs are planted all over Nelspruit by some third force. A clever psychological plan to break down what little resistance we have left.

If it’s not there again tonight, I’m going to complain to my neighbour….he’s the one that started it!

To be serious, dogs can be a pest at night, or during the day, for that matter.

All you lot out there that keep a `yard dog’, I think that’s the right term, make sure he doesn’t keep your neighbour awake, it’s just not fair, both to the dog and the folks next door.