Over the last year, Tuesday has become my least favorite day of the week. You can try to guess why, but I don’t think you’ll get it. It’s not because of what’s on TV or what my schedule is like.
It’s because Tuesday is landscaping day at the apartment complex where I live.
Tuesdays are a day off from the cats only boarding facility, but I have to get up early anyway on Tuesday. I have to take Moose and Lally out for a nice long walk before the lawnmowers and weedwackers start up at 8:30. Then it’s a barkathon from the time they start work until 12:30 or so, when the landscapers break for lunch.
Up we go for another walk, then it’s back into hiding for another few hours until the landscaping is done and all is quiet. And then it’s six blissful mower-free days until the cycle begins again.
I’m not sure what drives my dogs so crazy. Is it the loud noises of the machinery? The strangers walking past the windows? They do seem to enjoy the aftermath of all that mowing and trimming — everything must smell differently afterwards, because we do a LOT of intense sniffing on Tuesdays.
When we lived in New Jersey with my grandmother, my dad did the mowing. And the dogs would bark then, too. At the time, I thought they were happy to see my father, and trying to get him to stop and come play with them instead. But maybe they didn’t like the noise.
Moose and Lally react in a similar fashion to motorcycles (which have the same loud kind of engine if you ask me). They go crazy barking at the window long after the motorcycle is gone. So I’m going to stick with my theory that the noise is a large part of what bothers them.
In the meantime, I’ll be sure to close all the windows and try to provide some white noise (like the radio or TV) while the landscapers are at work.