She hates me. It’s her nature.
Coco is a tiny dog, some sort of mutt with a lot of poodle or terrier if I had to guess. She belongs to our neighbors on the north side and Coco’s job is to defend our wonderful, kind, friendly neighbors from all sorts of evil terrors. ***I*** am the evil terror, just in case I was being too subtle.
There’s a 6′ chain link fence between our yards, covered in vines (I’m sure you can catch glimpses of it in any one of hundreds of photos from the past six years) so I don’t see Coco well and she doesn’t see me, but that doesn’t matter. She’s sound activated. Any sound from me and she is sounding the alarm.
Me taking the trash out is the absolute bane of her existence. The trash barrel is over along that fence and when I open the lid on the trash can or recycling bin it often bangs into the fence and rattles it. She’s often barking at me long before I get there, set off by my footsteps, but the sound of the trash bin being opened and closed is like throwing gasoline on a fire.
Even when I just go out to walk around the yard and stretch my legs, it’s anathama to Coco. This aggression will not stand. man!
I hear my neighbors trying to shush Coco, but she will not be silenced. She has a job to do and she’s going to do it!
I do not taunt her, ever. I don’t call her name. I don’t stand on my side of the fence and bark back at her. I don’t scream, “COME AT ME, COCO! GIVE ME YOUR BEST SHOT! LEAP THAT FENCE, COME OVER HERE AND GO FOR MY THROAT! TAKE ME DOWN AND PROVE YOUR DOMINANCE! SHOW ME WHO’S THE ALPHA CRITTER!!!” I don’t do any of that. I think about it… But I’ve been good.
So I understand my role, my part in this particular drama. I go outside, quietly, often with trash, minding my own business, and Coco goes berserk to make sure everyone knows I’m outside in the yard without supervision, footloose and fancy free, an obvious threat to the future of Western Civilization.
What kills me are the squirrels. We’ve got many of them (plus all of those birds!) and I’ve never once in six years heard Coco barking at the squirrels. Those little rat bastards scamper all over the yard and up one side of the tree and back down the other, along the top of the fence, in and out of all of the vines, and Coco ignores them completely. Isn’t THAT the EXACT sort of thing that terriers were originally bred for? Not for Coco, whose noble ancestors might be spinning in their graves at what their proud lineage has become. But god forbid that I should go out in my own yard with a camera to take pictures of a hawk.
Gee, it would be a pity if our juvenile red-shouldered hawk got a bit bigger and stronger and more capable and saw Coco as prey. Poor, poor, edible little Coco.
Time to start training and befriending hawks!
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 