(keying off of tanstaafl's recent HOA/Beagle post I thought I'd post this tale of Pat and Leslie....)

Pat: I can't stand listening to that dog bark anymore! It's nonstop! 24 hours a day out on their deck barking. And it barked all through our open house. How will we ever sell this place?

Leslie: I know, I know! It kept me up all night. Well, I mentioned it to Jan (dog-owning neighbor) and Jan said they took the dog to a trainer but it didn't do any good.

Pat: You can't just take the dog to the trainer. You have to reinforce the training! They just put the pooch out on the deck and ignore it!

Leslie: Well, Jan said they don't hear the dog bark that much and they don't see what the big deal is. Jan, said "It can't be bothering you *that* much! Get a life!"

Pat: Of course it doesn't bother *them*! They have central air conditioning!. It's too bad, but I think we just need to kill the dog. I can think of a painless, humane way to do it and that won't be traceable to us. It'll look like a natural death.

Leslie: Pat, you can't do that! That is sneaky! It's dishonest!

Pat: And the alternative is what?

Leslie: Well, we could go over tomorrow evening and talk with them.

Pat: Well, they don't seem to think they are causing a problem, so I think the chances of them acknowledging our concern is probably zilch. What did Jan say? "Get a life"? Sheesh!

Leslie: No, I think if we are polite and make our points calmly, they'll understand. They have to! And if they continue to ignore this, we can go talk with town hall and see if we can get them to deal with it.

Pat: The people at town hall are useless. Plus, if we go next door and make a big deal about this or if we file a complaint at town hall, we're stuck! We *couldn't* kill the dog then. They'd know it was us and we'd have the sheriff out here! I say let's just keep this to ourselves and fix the problem without tipping our hand.