It's nighttime. Bill is out of town. Kids are in bed. Our security alarm goes off. Often I accidentally set it off but this time I didn't. So when our security company (named very militarily CSS Tactical) calls to see if everything is okay, I say I'm not sure and ask them to send the officers out to check around the property just to make sure there are no bad guys lurking about (for my non-South Africa friends, this is all perfectly normal.. . all perfectly insane.) So, the CSS Tactical officers come, bulletproof vests on, holsters unsnapped. Using the secret code, they let themselves in our electric gate, and with torches drawn, walk around the garden checking every inch of the property. I have the puppies inside so they won’t freak out. But through the window, they see the guys walking around the yard. They freak out.
Once the CSS Tactical guys leave, I let the freaked-out puppies outside to investigate. Shaka, tail high, fur raised, barks his little macho head off. Sniffing around, barking, sniffing, gradually increasing his distance from the house, doing his own check of the property, following the trail of the “intruders”. Peppa barks too, but from the safety of inside, her tail tucked between her legs in fear. I can almost hear her thinking, “Please, please, please, don’t let there be anybody out there.”
Then for the rest of the night, they are jittery, startling easily at imagined sounds, breaking into duets of barking. My eyes follow theirs out the glass door, staring at dangerous nothingness. On edge myself, I take the panic button down off the wall and put it in my pocket. I let Shaka out to do a few more rounds of the perimeter as the night progresses.
As I sit there on my sofa, the three of us jittery and on edge, I realize there is something wrong with this picture. I’m pretty sure it is commonly held belief that dogs, in addition to the high walls, electric fence, and alarm system,* are a valuable addition to one’s security measures. So how come I find myself sitting there, two dogs by my side, feeling more unsafe and nervous than I have in almost two years of living here?
* For almost the whole time I have been here I have been meaning to do a blog about the incredible lengths we go here in the Northern suburbs to keep ourselves safe. About how insane it is. Maybe I haven't written it yet because I don't like to think how quickly I embraced it all and adapted to the insanity.
Is there a difference between "real and imagined danger"? In that situation, I'd think barking dogs are good. Doesn't barking at the imagined help keep the real away?
ReplyDeleteHey Steve, Such a good point and it makes me rethink the utility in this context of having dogs at all for security reasons. If my dog is barking at real danger (i.e. an intruder) that means said intruder has scaled high wall, electric fence and somehow deactivated security alarm. In which case I don't think a dog is too much of a deterrent to them completing the job. Now perhaps during the day, if the dogs stand at the gate and bark at passer-byers that might deter someone from breaking in during the day or from thinking about it later on when it is dark. (and truth be told we didn't get the dogs for security reasons at all - we got them because two people whom you know - one named Alexander and the other Quince.)
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