The Oregon Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that a southern Oregon couple must quiet their incessantly barking dogs by sending them to the vet to have their voices surgically squelched.
That seems a bit extreme; there's this process known as "training" with which the dog owners are evidently unfamiliar. The owners claim that they need half a dozen Mastiffs to protect the sheep on their 3.5-acre "farm", but heck, I used to get by with just one on identical acreage. On the other hand, I trained him to not bark all the time. His job was to guard the livestock, not to annoy the neighbors. Those owners are either lazy, stupid, or both.
Dog training's pretty easy; it's not exactly rocket science. If they can't figure it out, they should either hire someone who can, or re-home the dogs.
And what kind of idiots figure they need six dogs to guard 3.5 acres? No wonder the untrained dogs are bored. One dog can cover that kind of area just fine. I know people with 20 acres and two dogs; works for them.
Hmm. Makes me wonder if we could expand the law to include loud neighbors....
