Categories
Family

Apollo

148/365 - Fetch

I got rid of my dog today.

My neighbour sent three complaints to the City complaining Apollo was barking incessantly.

It’s an odd claim to make because he rarely barked. When he did bark, it was usually a single bark. On the occasion it was more than once, each bark was about 30 seconds to a minute apart.

I have heard incessant barking, and Apollo’s barking was not it, not by a long shot.

183/365 - Empty

When the City informed us today they were issuing us a $100 fine, we decided to take him to the pound. We can’t afford to pay $100 regularly because Apollo’s barking echoes in our neighbour’s head.

We got Apollo to keep people out of our yard. Prior to getting him last fall, several persons used our yard as a thoroughfare to get to and from the alley. We’ve had things stolen from our yard, including clothes from the clothesline.

I guess it’s all moot now though.

Goodbye, Apollo.

Like this article?

Join 19 others and become a paid supporter. Join 10 others and make a one-time donation. Join 32 others and subscribe to my monthly email newsletter.

By Kim Siever

I live in Lethbridge with my spouse and 5 of our 6 children. I’m a writer, focusing on social issues and the occasional poem. My politics are radically left. I recently finished writing a book debunking several capitalism myths. My newest book writing project is on the labour history of Lethbridge.

I’m also dichotomally Mormon. And I’m a functional vegetarian: I have a blog post about that somewhere around here. My pronouns are he/him.

10 replies on “Apollo”

That sucks. I had noise complaints on my dogs when I lived in Lethbridge too. My dogs didn’t bark, ever. You have absolutely no recourse though — the city won’t tell you who made the complaint, and you have no way of proving that your dog(s) didn’t bark.

I know.

We know which neighbour it was. The complaint form from this morning was sitting out and we saw the address.

Our only recourse is taking it to court, but that is just whether we pay the fine. It won’t be about proving he doesn’t bark.

My dog is pretty yappy, but our neighbour has two that make more noise. So in essence we are the “lesser of two evils”. Sounds like your neighbour sucks, sorry to hear about your situation.

The weird thing is the person who complained has been in the house only 3-4 months. In other words, we were here first. No one else complained over the last year. Not the neighbour on the other side; not his roommate who had been here for the previous year.

Leave a reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.