So…the guy who lives behind my house has a number of dogs. I can’t tell how many, just that they bark incessantly. Bark, bark, bark! Bark, bark, bark! A cacophony of canine vocalization. Even my kiddo’s dog, with a brain the size of a pinto bean, hardly barks at all—even when running back and forth along the dog neighbor’s fence.

With so much ambient barking, why would it need to?

Periodically, the guy who lives there (when he isn’t working out on the Bowflex in his backyard—naturally the dogs go inside for this horrifying spectacle) stumbles out in the shirtless haze of his hangover and starts screaming at his barking dogs. A sample:

No! No! No! Bad dogs! No! No! Come here! Git over here! Bad dogs! Come here! No! No! No! No! Bad dogs! Fucking dogs! No! Fucking no! Bad! No! No! No!

And so on. The problem is, his dogs, being possibly smarter than he, rightfully recognize his yelling as being similar to their own and renew their efforts. Our master is barking too! Now we totally have to bark! Whee!

Bark, bark, bark! No, no, no!

He beleagueredly rounds up the excited animals and drags them into the house amidst plentiful smacking. He continues to yell. Once the sliding glass door is shut, however, the yelling is muffled and words are no longer distinguishable. One imagines that the now traumatized-into-silence dogs are confused. Five minutes later, the dogs are shoved back outside where the bark-a-thon continues.

If by some chance, this guy happens to read this while making a living as a spam factory (seriously, he’s always over there. I know I’m home too, but I’m a writer! The only thing this guy is writing is the inadvertent catalogue of grammatical errors to be found in his shopping list, which could clearly be summed up by two words: Natty and Light), I’d like to communicate some small nuggets of wisdom.

Dude, your dogs bark all the fucking time not because of a shortage of yelling from you. Your dogs do not need more yelling. I do not need more yelling. The horrified toddlers who also live next to you do not need more yelling.

Your dogs bark because they are kept outside 90% of the time and were never trained to know any better. Your dogs bark because you are the sort of person who yells, rather than the sort who takes the time necessary to help them improve their habits. You are the sort of person who is more likely to search the Internet for doggie-style than doggie behavior.

Furthermore, if you are not willing to train your dogs, fine. I can understand, you have a busy schedule—between waking up at noon in a patch of your own halitotic drool, obsessing over your body fat percentage, and lowering property values—I can see how that collection of dogs you voluntarily acquired would be of low priority.