breaking the silence

Another early morning run. It was harder to get up: I didn't set an alarm and I woke up about every hour from about 1:30 am, and then every ten minutes or so after 5:00 am. I wanted to see if I'd wake up naturally...guess I did, but more than once. Tomorrow, I'll set an alarm. I feel more tired today than yesterday, and it was harder to get out of bed for both of us, but we got moving by 5:35 and out the door by 5:45.

I decided to try running west this time to see if a canine cacophony would occur this early in the morning. We mostly ran on the road itself which felt lovely. In terms of noise, there wasn't much once we passed a clump of dogs (4+ dogs, 3 different houses) a block or two from our house. They started up when we were about a half block away. There was someone standing outside with their dogs at the last house but they didn't shush them which kind of shocked me. The other dogs were by darkened houses, which suggested that they were left out all night, which shocked me too. Why bother getting and keeping the dogs in the first place if all you're going to do is toss them in the backyard and ignore them? At least nobody was loose; the situation is better than what I was fearing before we moved here.

I'm not used to all these yappy dogs. There were a few on and around our old block: my favourite was the little white one that lived about 8 stories up. My mom has one although he learned to be quiet when he was at my house. However, most dogs are inaudible. I was surprised to gradually find out that so many dogs lived in the area. I saw at least a half dozen enter and exit the next door apartment building. Apartment dogs get walked outside regularly and they aren't allowed to bark excessively indoors because of other tenants. Plus, even with single-family dwellings, the front yards are so small (or non-existent) that it's not practical to leave a dog in front.. There is a fair bit of other noise, especially in the summer when most people have their windows open, but not so much barking dogs.

My dog gets a bit wary when he hears a dog and maybe even sees a dog running toward him in front of a house but doesn't realize that it's not actually loose. Hopefully he'll get used to this. He's not barking back or pulling back, but I see him checking and rechecking over his shoulder.

I eventually got worried too this morning: I didn't think to check for a curfew! Maybe I'm not actually supposed to be out and about.

I checked, there is a curfew, but I'm ok because I'm older than 18. There is an exemption for kids with jobs, but 18 and under kids have to be off the streets by midnight, and 16 and under by 10:30 pm. I don't remember having a curfew. Just checked--at home, there is (was?) also a city curfew for kids 16 and under between midnight and 6 am. Ooops. Not that I ever loitered or whatever, but I was sometimes pretty late due to school drama and music and art things, as well as babysitting and so forth. Probably there isn't as much for kids here to do.

I checked, there doesn't seem to be a bylaw or ordinance prohibiting barking dogs here, just noise over 60 decibels in a residential area between 7:00 am and 11:00 pm. There's a sliding scale: 5 db over the limit for 15 minutes total in a given hour, 10 db over the limit for any 5 minutes in a given hour, or 15 db over the limit for any 1.5 min of in a given hour. 60 db is apparently a normal conversation at about 1 m away. I guess we stirred things up this morning, but we were quiet ourselves, plus we were moving too (the law doesn't seem to address a moving sound, but I'll continue to look into this).

Still, to be a nice neighbour, we'll probably mostly run on the business streets. However, it was a nice change to run on asphalt road rather than concrete sidewalk, and I probably won't give that up entirely.