I don't think dogs care what the people are doing, really; they simply take advantage of the "cover" of abundant human activity, to freely pursue their own interests. SHOUTING across the fence that divides them from the dogs next door, who always answer with their own shouts, seems to be the chief interest of Mao and Jaing here at my casita, especially during the hours of midnight thru 4 a.m.
The problem, for me, is that the piece of fence through which the dogs communicate is only 10 feet from my bedroom window.
Richard's inspiration for dealing with this problem is imaginative. He wants to invent a voice-activated sprinkler system that would douse the dogs with water every time they barked through the fence. The man who does the gardening and maintenance here, Hugo, has strung barbed wire along our side of the fence, but the dogs don't care about that. A nice sharp, cold, high pressure squirt of water in the face - delivered every time they barked at the fence - might get to them in a Pavlovian way, though. I think R's idea has possibilities. How can we get the idea out there to the genius who might actually put it into production?
In the meantime, I'm reading my depth psychology books about the emergent psyche, and especially about how your psyche will use any tool it can to get a message across to you. Are the barking dogs a tool my psyche uses to try to tell me something?
When fury threatens to choke me in the night, each time that volcanic eruption of BARK - SQUEAL - GROWL - HOWL - BARK - GROWL goes off outside my window, I use the psychic question to divert my rage. What is this disturbance suggesting to me? How does this outside event fit into my personal perception of reality? What does it mean?
So far, no brilliance illuminates the murk. The idea that has surfaced is that these dogs need to have a social life. They need to cavort and connect with each other, to sniff each other's asses and pee on each other's markings. If they had some opportunity to run and play together in the daytime, might they sleep at night? Unless, of course, disturbed by an actual intruder. I mean ... aren't they disturbed by each other, on either side of that fence, partly because they're so hungry to have relations with each other? Just an idea. Richard and I could hire one or two of the local beach bums to take these dogs out on the beach every day and let them work out their social snarls in the surf. How long would it take before we saw any difference in the night-time behavior of the dogs?
All right. Never mind. Speaking of the beach, I took some photos today. There are big fires in the uplands ... where forests and methane-laden boglands are burning. Smoke has been dense; in fact, traffic-stopping in places. These photos were taken in the mid-afternoon when the sun began to win out over the smoke. This view is from the bottom of my street, where I catch the bus to town. Note the pink roses blooming at left. I wish I'd had the camera with me earlier this day, when my view of that beach was of a Shelf on the Edge of NOTHINGNESS. No horizon in sight, due to the thick press of smoke-fog.
The horse doesn't care how close he comes to The Void.
Just to the right of the above scene is the small bridge across the stream you see flowing out across the beach to the bay. Here's a shot from inland, looking toward the bay from behind the bridge:
And then, below: Looking back upstream, away from the beach - the buildings up there are connected with one of the university projects. I think there must be an agrarian slant to their studies, as we regularly see men wearing huaso hats riding their horses on the beach, doing maneuvers that look like dressage. Also, we occasionally see a lively parade of llama, sheep and goats following the creek out to the grasslands along the beach. Sorry, I did not catch them with the camera.
Below: That horse is standing now ... must be time to eat again, despite the haze of smoke.
