A common comment I'm seeing is "if you leave your dog in your backyard to bark all day then you clearly don't love your dog".

I do agree that training your dog not to bark is a good thing, but hello, why do dogs bark? There's an animal in the yard, they hear noises, they see things moving.

If you were sitting out in your backyard BBQ-ing and a stray dog or a person you'd never met before just wandered into your yard and starting using it as their toilet or doing who knows what, you're telling me you're just going to sit there and not say anything, not even so much as a "Hey, who are you and what are you doing in my yard??"

Most of those people.... sound like utter and complete idiots. And what's sad is they think they're hot s***. Because the ONLY argument they have is "well you don't love your dog if you keep it outside and let it bark all day". How about we do love our dogs so much we don't want to keep them confined to a crate all day?!

EDIT: I will also add that I loved the comparison of a barking dog to a crying infant. You don't understand what your child wants, so are you telling me you'll just shake the baby to get it to shut up?? It's the same difference.