Kayleigh's Bark and the 6' Foot Wind Chimes

Kayleigh resting in her new Plainfield home.

In November 2004, I moved into a new house in Plainfield, Illinois. It was typical suburbia, a neighborhood full of life with kids, people in their backyards, and neighbors everywhere. Of course, being late to the game, we were considered the outsiders since most of the homeowners were first generation homeowners.

Reagan

Kayleigh was a spoiled rotten Labrador Retriever who now had a brother. I rescued a Basset-beagle that I named Reagan. Reagan was a beautiful dog with his own personality, but he was far more independent than Kayleigh, but he still wanted to be loved. They were a fun combo non the less for the short time Reagan was in our lives. He was an escape artist and managed to play Houdini from his tie out multiple times. Most of the time, were were able to find him, but the story doesn't end happily. I hope Reagan found himself a nice home.

Anyway, our back yard featured a public greenway that encouraged people to play near our backyard, as well kids often cut through our yard to save a minute or too. The problem was the only thing greed about the greenway was the mowed grass. There were no trees, and all noises echoed off the templated suburbia homes.

So when summer came, the masses of kids would come to the greenway. I bet you can see what is coming.

Kayleigh and Reagan played hard together. They were quick and precise in their movements in the house and never tipped anything over when they played, but the thunder of the back and forth made it hard for me to study, so the practical thing to do would be slow them down and put them on a tie out in the back yard.

Now a couple things happened. First, Kayleigh was mischievous in a good sort of way. It came from her playfulness, her size, and of course her appetite. Like any good and loving pet owner, I always tried to make sure she had water when she was outside. Kayleigh liked to play with the bowl, so the water got tipped and she went without.

And of course, Kayleigh being my own personal protector, which is a part she volunteered for, barked when kids were playing in what she thought was our territory, which happened to be the greenway. Now for some reason, after five or six years of these houses being built, no one felt the need to plant trees. So Kayleigh and Reagan's barks would echo off the houses. Of course they weren't the only dogs, but for some reason, being the outsiders in the neighborhood, we were easy targets.

The first time I learned this was a problem was when Plainfield police showed up at my door noting a complaint. I told them I would work to comply to find a solution. It was off the Walmart on 59 a half mile away or so to buy bark collars. They didn't exactly work to well. During the first time out, I left Kayleigh and Reagan on the tie out. When I came back to check on them an hour later, Kayleigh was shaking miserably. It turns out that something, which I believe was her ID and rabies tags clanging against each other was sending the negative enforcement through her body--shocking her. I couldn't do that to her, so it was off with the bark collars. I returned them to Walmart. The barking started again.

A few days later, a letter showed up in the mail addressed to the residents of 1301 Green Trails Drive. I opened the letter up only to listen to the rant of a cowardly neighbor complaining about the barking all the while accusing me of being cruel to my two beautiful dogs. Noted in the letter was how they had to fill the water bowls up, and of course Kayleigh looked at the water bowls more as a toy than something with real purpose. It was a real insult, especially since we were working on limiting the barking, which we were far better and bringing them in or correcting their behavior, but more so because someone anonymously decided to cry animal abuse when it wasn't even close to the truth. Both these dogs were spoiled rotten and both of them deserved the spoils.

You know, I feel a dog's life is short, so you have to let them enjoy as many days of it as you can.

What to do, what to do? I wanted to know who wrote the letter. So I figured out a way to drag the anonymous letter writer out from hiding.

First, I got onto Limewire and searched for sound effects. I found fart sound effects. I loaded them on my small Creative flash memory MP3 player and set it to endless loop. I then unhooked my small Bose speakers from my computer and placed both of them in the window seal with the window cracked. Soon the echos of farts were bouncing off the treeless homes.

After a day or two of this, I got a visit from the Plainfield Police. Luckily I didn't have it one when they showed up, or I could have been cited for not having a PA license. I had to resort to a new plan, so it was off to Walmart to find the most annoying wind chimes I could find. Since all the bedrooms were on one side of the house, I figured I could hang them over the other side of the house and not worry about having to hear them at night.

So when I got to Walmart, I didn't just find wind chimes, I found WIND CHIMES. These were wind chimes from hell--6 foot at it's longest. They were just the solution, and I don't think anyone had ever been cited for wind chimes before. Of course you never know in America these days.

So I rushed home, got the ladder out of the garage and began hanging my wind chimes. The clanging of the chimes was instant. It wasn't a sound that was going to be well accepted in the neighborhood. Within moments, the young eye-candy next door came out in her typical bikini top and tight shorts with a video camera filming me hanging up my wind chimes. I now knew who wrote the letter, but that didn't stop me from hanging the other chimes I bought. It wasn't untell she asked me "what the f-bomb my problem was" that I engaged in conversation with her.

I asked her "did you write the letter."

She responded, "what if I was."

I noted that sounded like guilt and asked her why, since she had no problem talking to us in the past as a friendly neighbor, she just couldn't knock on our door and work with us. I noted we have tried working with the dogs, and noted the bark collars shocking the hell out of Kayleigh. She admitted to writing the letters, and I told her I didn't appreciate her claiming my dogs are abused when they are clearly not.

She mentioned that she had to give them water in the past. I told her, I am constantly filling Kayleigh's bowl, but for some reason, she tips it over and plays with it. That's not a sign of abuse. That's a sign of a well taken care of dog that is happy and wants to play.

She apologized for the letter.

The wind chimes came down, and I took them back to Walmart. I never heard another complaint about the barking, but noted many times it wasn't just Kayleigh and Reagan who were guilty. There were quite a few dogs in that neighborhood that were stimulated by the greenway.