To Bark or Not To Bark

Before writing away about "To Bark or Not To Bark", I do have to clarify a couple of points:
1. Our dogs bark. We have been teaching our dogs not to bark outside now that we live in a neighborhood. When our dogs are outside and they start barking at someone they see, they sound like they are going to eat the person, we tell them to "hush" and for the most part, they hush. If they don't hush, we bring them in the house.
2. I am very defensive of our dogs. I know they aren't perfect, but one thing I don't handle very well is criticism of Pellet and/or Cali.

Okay, now we can start.

Today as I was leaving work, I was talking to Norm and he told me that one of our next door neighbors told him this morning that "the dogs barking is a big problem" and that "they bark too early in the morning" [they aren't out before 7am] and her bedroom is right on the corner where they bark. So Norm apologized.

Norm tells me this and I get all worked up, and in a very Fernanda-manner start spitting out: "7am is not early" and "we tell them to hush!" and "they are dogs for crying out loud" and "other dogs in the neighborhood bark". Norm tells me to just be conscious of the dogs barking for no reason [which I always do] and to not let it get to me.

The whole drive home my blood is boiling with thoughts like "what if the neighbor calls the police and we get fined and what if they end up calling the landlord and we get kicked out, then we won't have anywhere to live and we will still be responsible for this rent and our house at the lake hasn't rented, so it will be two rents plus rent wherever else we end up and we only have 10 more months in this house and after that we need to find a place with more yard and privacy, maybe I need to start looking now..." YOU GET THE POINT.

I pull in my driveway and the other neighbor (older lady from Miami - shout out to Natasha and all the lovely Miami peeps!) tells me "honey, when I'm outside and the dogs start barking at me, you don't have to bring them in the house" [the other day she was in her backyard watering flowers and Pellet and Cali saw her and barked crazy at her, so I naturally brought them in the house]. THEN, she continues "I actually prefer that they bark, because that lets me know that there is someone around and they bark loud, so they'll scare anybody away" yeah... I'm so confused right now as she continues "even when they bark in the house when they hear people outside, that's great! Let's people know not to mess with them".

So I thanked our lovely neighbor from Miami, expressed my concerns about disturbing the peace, which she told me to not worry about, and walked in my house to tend to my lovely beasts that were about to come through the window.