And They Call Themselves Watch Dogs

I have two wonderful dogs who fancy themselves defenders of the home. Often in the middle of the night one or both will wake me with a growl or a few barks as they respond to noises outside the house they believe could be menacing to us. All too often they respond to a door knock that isn't, storming the front door and windows like they are intent on ripping apart anyone they don't know who dares step foot onto the front porch. There is rarely anyone at the door when this occurs. Sometimes when a visitor walks through the door without a knock they don't even react.

Early this morning, well early every morning, the neighbors' rooster started crowing. It usually starts about 5:00 am. I believe that the chicken pen is located in the apartment"complex" two yards south of me. Yes, we are well within city limits. We are located in the center of town, between the West & East sides.

The rooster is a bit of a controversy on my block. I have heard one or two neighbors complain about the early morning crowing. The all-day-long Tourette's-like crowing is not terribly pleasant either. One day I came home to a "letter" in my mailbox asking that if I had a rooster I get rid of it or the anonymous neighbors would call the police and animal control. That was weeks ago and until this morning the rooster was still living nearby.

I am likely the only neighbor it does not really bother. Our windows are situated so that most of the noise from that side of the house is of low-key annoyance (except the really loud polka music). I also have very fond memories of a pet rooster when I was a kid.

His name was Maestro and he was very smart. He only crowed later in the morning and not often at all during the day. He would take his hens (of which there were two) for daily walks and would come home when called. All three would eat grain from our hands. I loved hearing him crow. Yes, we also lived in town, it is Petaluma after all: The Egg Basket of the World, the Chicken Capital of the World. It was generally tolerated. We did have to get rid of Maestro because our next door neighbor had a rooster that crowed far more and was mistaken for being ours. Shortly after Maestro left and the rogue rooster continued his daily ruckus, the neighbors and cops realized their mistake and then there were no more roosters. Sadly, Maestro was not allowed to return home.

All this to say that when I hear a crowing rooster is makes me smile. And my dogs ignore it.

But it doesn't have the same effect on everyone and this morning someone snapped.

I was awakened by yelling at about 6:40 am. It wasn't loud enough to wake Joe, nor my dogs apparently. There wasn't even a throaty growl to acknowledge that there slumber was being disturbed. Out the bathroom window I could see a man I didn't know yelling and throwing things at the building near the unseen chicken pen. He was screaming "Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!" punctuated by several obscenities. I heard him yell at the rooster, "Hey rooster. Why don't you crow?! Huh, COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO!" And so on.

Still my dogs were silent.

The next time I looked out the window, the angry man was chasing the rooster, chair menacingly in hand, into the yard next to us. By now Joe was awake and getting dressed; Molly was still curled up on the bed and Max Bear (nicknamed Jethro for moments like this) was sitting up but leaning against my side of the bed.

We went downstairs and the rooster was standing atop our pergola, and then the angry man was walking away from our house in our driveway. Joe dialed the police department and while listening to the menu looked outside again to find that the rooster had disappeared. He had been ready to report the angry man who had not only awakened us in a manner FAR worse than a couple of ignorable crows, but was trespassing and moving fowl into our yard.

During all this the dogs were still upstairs in our bedroom on or next to the bed. Neither has barked nor growled once.

The rooster and the angry man disappeared before the Petaluma Police answered the phone, so Joe hung up. We waited for more ruckus. Nothing. The neighbors next door slowly came out of their apartments to survey the damage. We rehashed the incident a bit, theorizing that if we had been able to nab the rooster we could have called the police and animal control to take it away, solving several problems at once.

But when Joe said that we could have let the dogs out back to deal with the rooster I laughed. The dogs had waited until the coast was clear before slowly making their way downstairs hoping to follow their normal morning routine of potty and breakfast.

And they call themselves watchdogs!