A Dying Wookiee?

Okay. It's a dog. Good. Now, I can go back to being upset at other people instead of myself.

It all started when I opened my windows about a month and a half ago. It was warmish out in March for a few days and I opened some of the windows in my house to let some cool/fresh air in. I closed them shortly after that and then opened them again and closed them again and... you get the picture. Now that it's been consistently warm out, the windows have remained in some state of open-ness for a good week and a half.

When you open your windows in the spring time, two things come into your home. The first thing is spring-time air. Sometimes, it's air that is still on the chilly side, but you let it in because you want some fresh air to replace what has been sitting in your house since last Fall. Sometimes, it's because it really is too warm in your house to survive, even with the heat off, that you require some cooler spring-time air to bring the temperature down to something your body likes better. Either way, it's a good and welcome thing.

The other thing that comes into your home when you open the windows is the sounds of your neighborhood...

There are many types of sounds that a neighborhood (as a whole) makes. Some sounds are welcome: birds chirping/singing, the ice cream truck going by... (that's all I can think of and truth be told the birds wake me up sometimes and the ice cream truck song is annoying and repetitive).

Luckily, I have rather quiet neighbors. I live in a mostly quiet neighborhood, in which, most of the people on my street are elderly and only make a ruckus when they are mowing their lawns three times a day and at six in the morning*. There are some neighbors of mine who have young children and you can sometimes hear them laughing and playing or shooting hoops. Sometimes they argue and there is the ultra-rare crying fit, but mostly these are sounds that make the neighborhood feel alive and lived in. My immediate next door neighbor is a musician and I often hear him strumming his acoustic guitar or plucking his banjo on his front porch or back yard. I'm sure my neighbors hear my guitar playing often enough.

Since I opened my windows, I have become accustomed to the sounds. At first, they seemed over powering. After all, the windows had all been shut previously and not many neighbors were out doing neighborhood-esque things in the chillier temperatures.

One sound, however, sticks out more so than the others. And now that it's been about a month and a half with the windows open, I'm realizing that it's not a one-time sound and it's not going to go away.

When I first heard the sound, I easily dismissed it as a baby crying or a perhaps a dog howling. It is a distant sound when I hear it and I'm in my house, so it's hard to make out exactly what it is coming from. Typically, I hear it when I'm laying in bed (in the morning or at night) and, so, everything is pretty quiet and my mind has the time to think about what the sound could be.

After hearing it multiple times I started to think that it couldn't be a baby crying/screaming -- it was too "bassy." But, if it were a baby, it would be alright; eventually, the baby would grow up. I idly wondered if someone had kidnapped a person and was torturing them on a daily basis, since the sound occurred so often and was so horrid sounding. Of course, if it was a person being tortured, they would eventually give up the info or die and then I wouldn't hear it anymore.

Another thought that I had was: werewolf -- but, that is a clearly ridiculous thought, because werewolves only come out on a full moon and I was hearing these sounds during the day. Duh. I also toyed with the idea that Chewbacca was dying down the street from me, but that whole Star Wars thing happened "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..."

Meanwhile, this sound was really starting to bother me. It was throaty and bassy and sounded like something dying a torturous death. I grew to hate the sound, due to its predictability and disturbing nature... I wished it would stop at whatever cost to the thing making the sound.

A few days ago, I was outside... and I heard it again. It was a little louder, now that I was hearing it outside and not walled in by my house, and more defined, detailed.

I'm such an idiot, I thought. It's a developmentally disabled person...

I started to feel really bad. Here I was developing all of this hatred towards whatever it was that was creating this awful sound, which was brutally annoying to me, and it might be coming from someone who didn't have a choice in making it. I have worked with people who have various disabilities, some of which were unable to communicate with words and often sounded like dying creatures when attempting speech. That was what the sound sounded like.

But, I was wrong.

Today, I had to borrow a ladder from a neighbor down the street. While walking in that direction, I was also coming closer to where that sound was coming from.

And there it was. The sound. Being that I was closer than I had yet been, I heard it with much more detail. And that detail was the way in which the sounded ended. It crescendoed in a forceful exhale that was almost a cough, but wasn't quite. It was definitely a woof. Dog.

Phew. I can go back to not feeling bad for hating on a person with disabilities. I can also go back to hating on pet owners! Not all pet owners, mind you... some pet owners are responsible and actually take care of their pets. Not this one though! This dog whines in long drawn out doggy-sobs at multiple times throughout the day. I don't know how people who live closer to this dog handle it. I live down the street and the sound is mostly muffled and unclear. If I lived a half of a block closer, I would probably strangle these people... and then take the dog out to the country and let it be free...

*I may have exaggerated, but my elderly neighbors have picture perfect lawns because they don't work and spend all day making them look picture perfect... I can't compete.