Dog Day Afternoon

The problem of the yelping dogs just won't go away.  They were excelling themselves one Saturday afternoon and I quite liked the idea of sitting outside in peace and quiet.  But no.  Yap, yap, yap.  Yelp, yelp, yelp.  Non stop.

So, in a measure of desperation brought about by the ineffective police to enforce the local by-laws (this isn't just a whim or a wish on my part, barking/nuisance dogs are not permitted by the Subic Bay Metopolitan Authority), and assuming the dogs were not being attended to (otherwise, surely, someone would attempt to shut them up) I grabbed a handful of gravel and lobbed it at the cage.  It was a good shot for such a small cage (small even to hold two very small dogs.  The effect was instant, if not lasting, and it shocked the dogs into silence.

Fifteen minutes later they were at it again so I repeated the process and they seemed to shut up for good.

Thirty minutes later the door bell went.  I opened and there was a police officer stood there and he said that they'd received a complaint that I'd been throwing stones at the neighbours dogs.  Me?  Why would I do that?  After all, I explained, I'd complained about the dogs several times, as had the neighbours on the opposite side, and knowing that the SBMA police wouldn't tolerate persistent infringement of the rules, the barking would have ceased and I'd have no need to throw stones at the neighbour's dogs.  My neighbour must be mistaken, I told him, it can't possibly have been me.

This threw him sideways a bit.  He told me that sometimes the dogs bark when a cat walks in front of them.  I said by that reasoning the cats must be doing an Irish jig in front of the dogs and then pull up a deck chair to read War & Peace.  This totally flummoxed him and off he wandered.

That night, three shots were let off from a gun from what sounded to be from under my bedroom window it was so loud.  Probably a sinister warning from my neighbour to back-off.  Apparently, it's a usual tactic here in the Philippines I've been told.

In the morning we reported the incident to the SBMA police.  They said they were going to investigate the matter.  Did they investigate it?  Did they (inset expletive here).