By M. Snarky

Story 52 of 52

Well, we finally got through escrow hell and have moved into a community in the 805, one which we have been desiring since they were built in 2004. We’ve been living here for less than a week but have already apparently ruffled some feathers regarding our Aussie-Doodle dog Sydney and her “nonstop” barking.

Mind you, at our previous residence, we put Sydney outside in the backyard during the day when we went to work. Never had one complaint in seven years. Generally, she only barks at people when they come to the house.

At our new digs, we went with the same feed-the-dog-and-put-the-dog-outside-and-go-to-work morning routine believing that Sydney would be fine in the new place. Well, apparently not, at least, according to someone in the community who has chosen to hide their identity.

On Tuesday November 4, there was an envelope on the patio that someone had tossed over the fence, with “C’Mon, Man!” hand-written with a felt tip marking pen on the outside. Inside the envelope was a printed note with the following verbatim message duplicated in bold 48-point font here for authenticity:

Your dog started barking at 5:30 this morning and never came up for Air. You need to do something about that please. 5:30 in the morning nonstop!!!!!!! it’s now going on hour three

Yeah, lots of yelling and anger there plus some bad grammar and punctuation, but they did say please so there is a razor thin level of politeness. No knock on the door; no name; no phone number; no address; no discourse between adults—just pure rage. Kim didn’t leave for work until 6:30 that morning while Sydney was outside, and Sydney didn’t bark at all, so that first point is obviously a fabrication. We’re not here to piss anybody off, so we pivoted (as one should in these types of situations) and changed Sydney’s feeding schedule and kept her in the house during the day for the last two days.

However, on Thursday, November 6, there was a notice from the city’s “Animal Safety Licensing” division hanging on the front doorknob with two of the three boxes checked and a few lines underlined by hand to emphasize something of great importance:

☒ An officer of the Animal Safety called today regarding a complaint that a dog or dogs living at the above address are creating a noise disturbance in violation of City ordinance. We request you cooperation in observing the provisions of the City Code Chapter 5, Article 1, Section 5-2, Subsection (A) 7, which states: The utterance of barks, cries, whines or other sounds of any household pet which are so loud, so frequent and continued over so long a period of time as to unreasonably disturb the peace and quiet of two or more unrelated residences.

Failure to comply in reducing the animal noise could result in an administrative hearing to determine whether the action of the animal(s) constitutes a public nuisance.

☒ ANIMAL LICENSE VIOLATION (Chapter 5, Sec. 5.55)

“Every person who owns a dog or cat over the age of four months…shall obtain a current license and license tag…Any person who violates this section is guilty of an infraction.”

You must comply and license the animal by 11/16/2025.

C’mon, man! Now this person has called the K9 cops on us too, great. They didn’t even have the courage to file a complaint with the HOA first like a rational, reasonable person would, I think, because they don’t want to be identified. Granted I already have a bone to pick with petty money grabbing city ordinances like animal licensing, but one must abide to avoid further complications.

I’ll have to admit that I love the idea that Sydney was barking at the Animal Safety officer the entire time that he/she was standing at the door filling out the complaint: It would be sort of poetic.

Some research on animal licensing in our zip code indicated that we have 30-days to get licenses for our pets, so it’s clear to me that the Animal Safety stooge, er, officer, either doesn’t know the law or is openly harassing us.

Anyway, this anonymous coward person is either an old, bitter, retired crank, or a snooty Karen type with nothing better to do than stir things up between neighbors.

Either way, I will do my best to be polite if I ever do meet him or her (for the time being, anyway). The problem with anonymous cowards is that they are very good at being anonymous cowards for they have been practicing the skill their entire life.

Personally, I have never been very good at being intentionally anonymous. I prefer a spoken face-to-face kinetic conversation where voice tone and body language become part of the open two-way communication between adults. These additional queues are more easily interpreted as either friendly, neutral, or openly hostile. You’ll succinctly know how things stand communicating this way.

Anonymity, however, is the polar opposite of a face-to-face conversation. By design it is a one-way communication method—one that makes it all too easy to completely misinterpret someone’s intent as they conceal who they are. They are ghosts. My imagination tends to quickly run wild…and dark. In other words, this anonymity is a chickenshit method of communication.

Given the opportunity, someone might anonymously deflate all four tires of someone else’s vehicle.