MuckFlash

Prague, CZ -12 March 2009- Staff. Good fences might make good neighbors, but when the stakes are higher, nothing beats a well trained attack animal. At least that’s the case according to Jan Sokol, a retiree who wasn’t getting along with his neighbors in a suburb just north of Prague.

“These people thieve and trespass, and I have to allow them on my land? No, I don’t think so, ” he said, referring to neighbors who sometimes take a shortcut to through a corner of his yard. “If they cannot stay out, I will make them stay out.”

After erecting several fences, hanging strongly worded signs and even staking out his claim with a foghorn and garden hose, Sokol still was not able to keep neighbors from traversing parts of his yard on their way to a nearby commercial district. It was then that he decided to take drastic action.

While an attack dog required local licenses and was too costly, Sokol decided that he could solve the problem creatively by training his small flock of pet ducks to attack any intruders. “Ducks, they have good memories. They can migrate in winter, so why can’t they learn to attack?” Sokol reasoned.

Through a process of behavioral conditioning, Sokol gradually taught the ducks to treat any incursion onto his property as a life threatening situation. Surprisingly, over time, the ducks internalized the conditioning and began to aggressively confront would be ‘trespassers’ with a flurry of loud quacks and hisses. Some neighbors even suffered minor scratches and duck bites.

Neighbors, who have since begun to avoid the Sokol residence, are less than enthusiastic about Sokol’s Skinnerian feat. “He’s a crazy old man. You want to attack people with ducks? It’s a little patch of grass, for the sake of Christ,” said local resident Petr Svoboda. “I hope his stupid ducks turn on him and devour him all up. It would only be poetic justice for that old bastard,” chimed his wife Martina.