Man's Best Friend
Posted September 9th, 2008 by Isobelle
There’s a dog that lives next door. His name is “Bz”, pronounced like a swarm of insects that wants to sting you. Bz is a small dog that, as far as I can tell, stays locked in a cage for twenty four hours a day, and only exists on this planet to annoy me. He barks and barks and barks, and sometimes even makes little guttural snarling noises like he really wants me dead. This would be horribly amusing if it weren’t so annoying for two reasons: I’ve never seen him out of the cage, and even if he were to escape and try to attack me, I could just step on him, suffering minor injury to my ankle. Probably the act of stepping would pose more of a threat to my ankle’s well being, as this dog is roughly the size of a football, and wouldn’t require any Holy Hand Grenades to vanquish.
The dog is doing its job, I suppose. By alerting the Fujisawa house that a big ugly foreigner is putting on his scooter helmet, or bringing groceries up to his apartment, he is earning his keep. The problem is that Bz never shuts the fuck up, so I really doubt that the Fujisawas even pay attention to him anymore. I’ve developed a fantasy scenario in my head, and each time Bz launches into a new tirade, a new chapter is developed. It basically boils down to me infiltrating the Fujisawa household, and killing everyone inside. Bz would probably go into nuclear meltdown mode were I to cross from the carport to their actual property, but I doubt anyone inside the house would even register his ferocious yapping any more than they do now. Then I could just come outside, drenched in blood and stand over Bz’s cage laughing the maniacal overlord laugh of one whose plan has come to full fruition. Then I’d let him starve to death in his cage, knowing that even though he tried his best to warn them of their impending doom, they ignored him, because he’s such an annoying shit for the other 6 days, 23 hours and 59 minutes of every week.
God I fucking hate dogs.
Maybe I'll expound more on it later, but even typing this up is making my blood pressure rise. I need a beer, Christ.
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While I'm not the "anonymous" poster above, I want to say something about this article too. I've been a fan of this site for about a year now and I generally enjoy your writing, Iso. You are definitely my favorite writer on here, and I can go as far as to say you're my favorite writer regarding video games.
That being said, stick to the games. I'm not going to tell you to "grow up" or anything, because this is the Internet... I don't know you, and I really have no right to pass judgement on you because of that. What I will try to do is make you understand this dog and it's point of view.
The dog is neglected by its owners. It's kept in a cage all day. It barks because it's bored... it wants to be let out. It probably also barks because it's distrustful of humans because they KEEP IT IN A CAGE ALL DAY. Now, if this was a dog that was pampered and loved and brought up correctly and it still did that, this might be a different story. Like a human, he is shaped by how he is treated and in this case, it is very poorly. Nonetheless, wishing death on a creature that just doesn't know enough to KNOW BETTER is utterly horrible. And while you probably don't care what "Random Internet Guy #3445" thinks, this article has lowered my opinion of you.
You know what you could try? Approach the dog with a treat (cooked chicken cut into small pieces is good). Do not look him in the eye. This is threatening to dogs. Crouch down to his level so he doesn't see you as a towering giant. Put the treat in his cage. If you do this once in a while, in time, the dog will learn to trust you and not bark at you when you go by. Of course, this requires the dedication of someone who is willing to empathize with the creature and fix the situation rather than just wishing harm on him. If you do decide to do this, let me know how it works out.
Thanks.
Yeah, I'm a guy. I'm not a member of PETA nor am I a crazy "Save the Whales" lunatic. I'm not vegetarian and I'm not a hippie. Are you done assuming things about me? You now owe me $60. Also, I'm a dog owner too, and I've raised my dog right so he doesn't bark at random strangers.
I don't think Iso would have to convince the neighbors to let him walk in seeing as how they don't give a damn what happens to the dog. Whether he's territorial or not, my post was about trying to help Iso understand and fix the problem, rather than getting upset about it. I don't think Iso can do anything about the dog barking at everything and everybody that walks by, but at least he can try to do something about the dog barking at HIM. I don't think I was being disrespectful so I have no idea why you are (though again, this is the internet, so I should really learn to lower my standards).
Hmm, I probably should have switched back from 'Filtered HTML' before I posted that without line breaks and looked like an idiot.
oh well!
I can't stand dogs, or children, or anything loud and obnoxious that isn't properly handled by the owner/parent/whatever. As much as I hate these things I hate the owners/parents/whatever even more. If your dog never shuts the fuck up then you need to do something about it. Treat it nice, give it a puppy hand job, drug it so it's sleepy all the time, or put it in a situation where it can't annoy those surrounding you. The same goes for obnoxious crying children. If your kid can't shut the fuck up you need to remove said kid to a place where he/she/it isn't annoying the fuck out of everyone around them. It's just common courtesy. The minor desire to smother a crying child or barking dog is easily eclipsed by the burning need to choke the fuck out of their parent/owner until they understand what it means to be considerate for those around them. The child/dog can't help it they don't know any better, but their parent/owner most definitely does. Fucking assholes.
Also I find it amazing how many people I live around flip out about someone feeding a stray cat outside but do nothing to silence their loud barking dogs. I think I can probably count on 1 hand the number of times in my entire life that I have heard a cat making a noise loud enough that it can be heard inside my place of residence. I can understand dog hating, they are loud and irritating. What is there to hate about a cat though? On the off chance it is stupid enough to approach a stranger it's going to what, rub fur on them? Still some of my neighbors are infuriated by another neighbor who feeds a couple of cats that live in my neighborhood. OMG THE WORLD IS GONNA END THE CATS MIGHT SLEEP NEARBY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Okay so in all fairness I am a cat person. I used to have dogs growing up and while I like them well enough cats are just a million times more convenient for apartment living. So I have a couple of cats. The difference is my neighbors would never even know I had cats if they didn't occasionally sleep on one of my window sills. They don't make annoying loud noises. Thus they are superior apartment animals. Fortunately here it is pretty easy to find a place that doesn't allow dogs. I don't know about over there though.
I like that idea, hah!
yeah, i'm hoping someone stateside is going to hook me up a copy, since apparently selling it to someone in japan would comprimise national security. I can get all the way to checkout in amazon or whatever, using my american credit card and billing address (parent's house), but once the shipping address is NIPPON the sirens go off and no no no... direct2drive won't even let me view my cart, since the IP block I use is based here.
I'll get ahold of itg somehow, and i'm actually looking forward to seeing how it's progressed.
ms Blehh, you are demanding that iso learn to "understand" this animal's behavior. do you know how many different kinds of animals there are? several at least. yet you haven't even bothered to begin to be understanding of other humanbeans behavior. you are clueless on gallows humor and don't start thinking you know it because you looked up gallows then humor.
wishing a horrid death on this animal means nothing, it's not awful or evil. why not? wishing does nothing, try wishing the lottery. i bet yappy-squeek wishes to eat someone...
secondly this rodent can not speak in what ever language iso was wishing in.
thirdly iso is in big fat trouble if this thing can actually read minds which of course it cannot. wishing does nothing.
if iso's absurdist humor is oh so revealing about what kind of e-vile person he is then what does the rodent-dog's behavior say about it's "inner qualities".
ms blehh, you want to hate - but you don't want to get caught at it. so you hate people (yourself) and "love" the animals that aren't in YOUR neighborhood.
YOU think iso is a clear and present threat the world.
the fur-mold thinks its with the fujisawa household.
YOU yapp about how dangerous and awful iso is.
so does the mutt.
YOU think the world will die because he typed a buncha abc's.
spazamatic thinks it's cuz iso brought home potato chips
this rodent is a metaphor for YOU.
stop yapping just because your mother wishes she could sue sperm
i hate yappy dogs (metaphorically this means you)
die plz b4 u breed
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