whose moral code that is the question
I agree. The owner is at fault not the dog. I have always felt that people who, for instance, leave tuna laced with antifreeze for cats should receive the same treatment as punishment.
In thinking? It’s just information.
He said he was intending not just thinking.
Fair enough, I overlooked that.
In the circumstances I quite sympathise with the Captain, the dog not having any kind of decent life anyway.
Until one has similarly suffered (from whatever source)… it is difficult, if not impossible, to understand why someone threatens certain actions… or actually does certain things… which would be “unthinkable” to them… in normal circumstances.
I can sympathize with someone being driven to despair… and behaving totally out of character… any of us might need to find a way through whatever is our own personal “barking dog” situation.
Seems the “cry for help” is often overlooked by others… not understood for what it is… and then the person “flips…”
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Thank you Stella for getting to the heart of the matter. Nobody who was not a neighbour of this person and her dog can conceive of the misery it caused us all.
I bring your attention to the point I made - this dog lived in this flat 24/7. The woman lived without electricity. - i.e. no hot water. The accumulation of filth and the resulting smell - Spanish summer @ 35C +? - was such that none of us could open the windows onto the lightwell.
In addition it barked and howled more or less 24/7. As I mentioned, I beleive she started to drug it with her medication. The sudden gaps in the incessant barking and the gradual nature of its resumption indicated that. These periods always coincided with her leaving the building.
This situation was a bad as it could possibly get.
Clearly it was a case for social services but both the policewoman and my gestora explained that Soc Sevices resources were pitifully inadequate.
I approached a dog refuge. They said, as ever, “Inform the police”. As I have described, the police had been and done their best. They and the animal rescue team had been thwarted by Spanish law which gave the son the right to hold the animals under his ‘care’. Once he’d locked them back inside he didn’t appear until after his mother’s death.
The woman owed the community money. She had not paid her service charges for some years. The managing agent was in despair. Because of her medical condition there was nothing he could do but on the other hand she wasn’t getting any more help than treatment for her cancer.
Yes, I used that word. At the time it was the word. “If only I could do this”. The intention was, in effect, wishful thinking. It was a way for me to imagine some sort of solution to this nightmare. I’d lie awake at night, the dog howling like crazy next door, with this ‘plan’ in my head.
Two issues prevented this. One, the doing of it from what has been refered to as the moral position. The other was that it was simply impossible to physically get an Ibup-spiked item to the dog. Spanish flat doors don’t have letter slots. The door fitted to the floor by the thickness of a piece of A4.
I can’t see any of what I wrote as funny. It was an extreme situation which rendered the lives of many people very miserable. In UK this situation would not have lasted 2-3 months. The RSPCA would have taken the dog away, with no let or hinderance from the owner or her family.
Quite so. I have no idea what happened to that dog.
I once heard a furious row next door between the woman and some man - maybe her brother, who sold me my flat, which the family had owned. There was continued shouting by the man of "el perro! el perro!.. " “the dog! the dog!” Perhaps he had been on the thick end of some complaints. And quite likely the dog had been destroyed as soon as the family got hold of it.
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I apologise. Now that you have explained I can see the position you were in.
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Gosh what a horrendous tale and I doubt anyone on this forum has not had thoughts they wouldn’t normally have when driven to despair. Its a sorry tale and goes to show how low people can get and how their once loved pets also pay the price too. The animal cruelty around here that I read about in the local paper is beyond comprehension too and its not just domestic pets but farm animals and horses & donkeys. Dogs usually only bark from my own experience if there is something wrong, they are ill or are just replying to others they may hear when outside. My late compagnon was a little devil for waking the local dogs up most evenings when we took our last stroll round and he would get them all “chatting”. He also had wolf dna in his blood so used to howl like a werewolf indoors out of habit and once the neighbour came round to see if I was OK. Not always the dog’s fault.
Dogs bark from boredom and being left alone. A friend had two mini schnauzers. As soon as he went out they set up a dreadful howling. I can imagine the thoughts of his upstairs and next door neighbours …
When he got home they went bananas, barking. He used to join in! A furious barking match ensued which he always won! I was very sorry for his neighbours.
The Spanish dog barked and howled for as long as the woman was out. As the barking neurons in a dog’s brain do not have any logical component, they bark non-stop but cease when the owner returns. The dog must, in its doggy way, say to itself “See! It works! Bark and they come back!”
It doesn’t matter how long it takes, the 'Bark’ switch in its brain is on. At the moment the owner returns, it must ‘believe’ barking brought them back.
One last observation of the Spanish situation. When I first moved to my flat I did see her take the dog out, once. As I came in the street door, the dog rocketed down the stairs, stopped at the bottom and let go a huge lake of urine. It then shot across the lobby and laid great turds on the floor.
By the time it had done all this the woman appeared at the bottom of the stairs. She walked through the lake of urine. I pointed this and the turds out to her and said she must not go out without cleaning up. She just walked past me as if I did not exist and out onto the street.
As far as I know that was the last time the dog went out.
A properly trained and cared for dog will be silent for many hours when left alone. We never leave ours for more than 4 -5 hours or so (except new year’s eve or similar 
) but he will not bark unless someone comes to the door.
My feeling is that few are really interested in training their dogs to that degree, animal ownership being seen as a right rather than privilege.
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How to weigh good or bad neighbours in the house purchase process is a really difficult question, isn’t it?
Bad neighbours can absolutely ruin your enjoyment of a home - on the other hand, they could move next month - and the best neighbours ever move in. Or vice versa - the neighbours everybody in the street said were brilliant when you carefully researched the purchase suddenly leave, and the Adams Family move in…
This is true, we don’t have that problem, the various dogs who bark in the neighbourhood do not bother us, but we share an entrance with our nearest neighbours. It is owned by the Commune, as is their house, but they consider that their garden runs right up to our fence.
This isn’t a problem either, we have for many years been on the friendliest of terms and have helped each other out in family crises from time to time, but in discussing this one day and our contrary view of ownership, Marie-Paule said ‘but it will never be a problem because we know well that it is your right of access’. But she had to pause for thought when I said that that was fine while they lived there, but what if they moved and someone less friendly moved in? When we bought, 30 years ago, their house (there were other neighbours living there then) had a fence between it and that driveway but that was removed at some point before we settled here permanently.
I have come to the conclusion my neighbours are vampires They only seem to leave the house at dusk to go shopping, visiting etc. I know actually they are working from home but it gives me a laugh comparing them to Dracula! At the old homestead, there was a very small lotissement built adjoining me, all nice and respectable until the family from “Shameless” moved in. They only bought second hand cars and when they broke down, just left them where they stood for years, never did any gardening until forced to by the HLM people and the woman spent all day on facebook and him getting violent some weekends high on cannabis. However…they were never ever nasty or horrible to me and mine, always spoke and often told me they were having a party and never any damage done either to my fence or walls. You can’t choose your neighbours in most cases but a bit of give and take on both sides goes a long way.
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I can manage a certain amount of dog barking, and zone it out. But what I would find impossible is a swimming pool.
Friends of ours have the misfortune to have neighbours who built a pool a little while back. Sitting on her terrace in summer is appalling now. The screams from the kids are ear splitting, and go on into the night as they have bbq parties. And the pool is in front of their house, so all the surrounding houses are affected. (This particular family also have hunting dogs in a pen beside their house. But they don’t bark much.)
I have no idea what can be done to help your friends… but I do know of one situation where a property in the heart of a small town… was given permission to install a pool in their garden, with the stipulation that the pool must NOT be used after 8pm? (I think) in order not to be too intrusive/noisy for neighbours… ie no lights/music/noise… although I reckon a silent swimmer might escape detection…
It was a few years ago… but that’s roughly as I recall.
Perhaps your friends could approach their local council who would have given permission for the pool… just to check what, if anything, can be done…
As with annoying animals, much is down to the owners/users. We have neighbours with a pool, and you would barely know it was there most of the time. We have other neighbours who used to have noisey parties on their rear decking until 3am, though I’m pleased to say they are much better now they’ve got a little older (and having the police call round a couple of times may have given them a hint!).
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The pool is opposite the Mairie!! They are not interested, but did send some one out at 1am one night to tell them to shut up. Our arrêté is 22h.
Ah well… apart from that, it’s a complaint to the Gendarmes (possibly)… who can, I believe, insist that noisy latenight parties do stop if neighbours complain… not that I’ve personal knowledge of that route…