Wayward Dachshunds and Exhibitionist Neighbors

Something so ridiculous happened across the street this weekend, that I thought, this is one of those crazy things that’s worth sharing with the world. Bottom line: Some people should not have pets.

We have a roof deck on normally quiet Chandler Street in Boston’s South End, as do many of our neighbors. A couple, probably in their mid-thirties, and their yappy Dachshund, moved into the place across the way, on Lawrence Street.

Saturday night we had gorgeous weather. The couple (and their Dachshund and a new little white Poodle-type dog) were out on their deck around five in the afternoon, drinking wine and listening to really loud eighties rock on their laptop. Suddenly the dogs went berserk. They were barking like someone was trying to murder them.

Not exactly. It seems they thought their mistress was murdering their master.

The woman was hitting the man in the face with some kind of leather crop. She kept smacking him and grinding up against him and then smacking him again and the little dogs weren’t having any of it. The guy, on the other hand, was totally into it. He had his shirt off and then his pants down at his ankles and she kept whacking him harder, pausing only to swig more white wine and cackle maniacally between slaps.

By this point the dogs had gone apoplectic. Dismayed by their inability to persuade their mistress to halt her assault, the hounds ran for calmer surroundings. The Dachshund wriggled his way under the deck railing unnoticed, and the poodle followed within seconds. By this point several of our other neighbors had come up to their decks to investigate the nonstop barking. And they all joined us in shouting at the sex show couple that THEIR DOGS WERE TEETERING ON THE ROOF, FIVE STORIES UP FROM THE PAVEMENT.

I felt that sickening panic when you see something awful about to happen but you’re powerless to stop it. My eight month old son, who was oblivious to everything but the noise, might recover from seeing the little dogs plummet to their deaths, but I wasn’t sure I would.

Unbelievably, the couple failed to notice the dogs’ jail break or hear the multiple voices yelling over their music. Instead, the woman tossed her hair, hitched up her skirt, straddled the man right there on the plastic deck chair and started bouncing up and down as if on springs.

The dogs, meanwhile, had wandered five or six rooftops away and I was certain they would plummet to their deaths. They explored the edge of the roof, tails wagging, paws trotting perilously close to the haphazardly secured gutters. I called 9-1-1 (as did at least one of my deck neighbors). They connected me to animal control, the Harrison Street police station, and the animal rescue league before saying they’d send an officer over.

The couple continued to have sex in broad daylight and in full view of at least a dozen bystanders. The girlfriend of the man two decks down had turned green watching the scene and I could tell her boyfriend was frantically searching his brain for a way he could be the hero who rescued the hounds. Without a zip line at the ready, it seemed impossible.

Finally, kinky sex guy noticed his dogs were missing. We watched, along with all our other roof top neighbors, as he shoved kinky sex gal off his lap mid-moan, yanked his shorts up and hopped over his deck railing to round up the pooches. He listed and swaggered unsteadily near the edge. I thought he would plummet to his death as well, but he managed to regain his footing and scoop up both dogs.

He ushered the dogs, the still-half-naked, crop-wielding woman and her overflowing wine glass into their apartment. They left the laptop blaring its eighties tunes on the deck, and everyone else went back to their own business with this unfortunate soundtrack. The battery died about two hours later, but not before the entire block was treated to a playlist of early white guy rap.

There’s a snarky, not very attractive, part of me that hopes they forgot the computer out there because it rained overnight.