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From: Jasper
Date: 5/8/02
Time: 1:34:30 PM
Jolana,
Let's start with your first observation: "Dogs normally do not bark without good reason."
This is true. Unless something is wrong with the dog internally that causes it to bark uncontrollably for no external reason we can say for a fact that its barking has an external cause. Either a person or another animal it does not recognize as belonging on its turf; a letter carrier, a lineman, a meter reader, jogger, a big bird, a squirrel, unexpected visitors, etc. But these kinds of interludes don't last for an extended period of time.
Just now, I heard the dog next door begin to bark and I looked at my watch to see if it was around the time the letter carrier usually arrived. It was. Fifteen seconds later I heard the mail drop into my mail slot. Forty seconds after that the barking tapered off to a couple of barks every minute or so until it stopped. While I was writing this and doing my timing I heard another dog down the block begin to bark. Then I heard in the area of the barking the sound of someone moving a bulky object that sounded like a big, plastic trash container on wheels. This is not the kind of barking you lose sleep over or call animal control to complain about. It's the kind you expect to accompany the passage of letter carriers, joggers, strollers, meter readers, etc.
In my experience with dogs in the neighborhoods that I have lived in and the places I've visited, the cause of loud, persistent barking is usually one that involves an alarming, persistent territorial encroachment or a perceived threat of some kind from the dog's point of view.
I'm going to deal with I don't think that Fenjves, Stein or Storfer are credible witnesses. I'm going to deal with each of them in separate posts. -Jasper