My mate, Lewey

My mate, Lewey

A dog is not considered a good dog because he is a good barker.
A man is not considered a good man because he is a good talker.
Buddha

I'm afraid I must argue (just on a minor detail) with Buddha. When one of a dog's functions is to alert me to what's happening outside in the night while I sleep inside, then his bark is important. Getting off the subject a bit, a sheep or cattle dog without a bark isn't of much use either. But I guess Buddha wasn't a farmer or a rural person.

My mate, Lewey, has several different barks, none of them related to sheep or cattle. There's his Hello Friend bark, Hello Stranger bark, Hello you who I know so well bark (person or other dog), his get off my patch bark which can drive me to distraction when his indignation is directed at any passing rabbit or possum at night, and his bark of fury when something is going down that he is clearly not happy about.

This last bark is quite rare, saved for the infrequent occasions when things are not right in our world.

I should have heard this last bark five nights ago but if he was trying to let me know something was going down in the back yard I failed to hear him. And I should have heard it the following four nights, too. Each of the following mornings I gave him a good telling off as I scraped up the rubbish off the back lawn. I was not amused that something has been knocking over my rubbish bin, chewing at the handles that secure it and chewing through the rubbish bags it contains and scattering the thrash all over the yard.

He must have been fed up with being reprimanded because last night he really did perform. And he'd enlisted the help of my grand-daughters little terrier, Sam. Sam spends a fair bit of time in Lewey's company. When the girls are at school he trots down to my house and hangs out with Lewey who is very patient with him, lays down to allow Sam to play over and around him.

Last evening the girls were at gym, so Sam was here and didn't bother going home when they returned. Lewey's deep, furious barks and Sam's higher pitched barks woke me just after 2 am. Hoping to catch the culprit in action I didn't turn on any lights but crept to the back door, which I can see through out into the yard. Lewey was going to town at the end of his chain and just out of his reach was the big, black dog who belongs to the farmer over the road. Little Sam was yipping away on the other side of the villian. I flung open the door and roared! The black dog and poor little Sam took off! I called to Sam but there was no way he was coming back near the crazy lady.

Little Sam

My son has complained to the neighbour before about his wandering dogs and the havoc they create in the night. So it will be up to me to find a way to discourage him from the delights of my rubbish bin. He will be back. I can't think of any way to make the bin more difficult for him to get open. A while back when I was having trouble with an intrusive cat, spraying vinegar on the doorstep kept it out most of the time. Wonder if that will work with dogs?

If it doesn't I may be tempted into drastic action!