Miss Manners: Should I risk insulting my neighbor by being blunt about her dog?

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My neighbor has a new dog. Frequently she sees me out back with my dogs and asks to come into my yard so that our dogs may have a playdate.

This is fine occasionally. However, she asks me every day, and her dog barks a lot. This is too much. Sometimes I just want to be alone with my quiet pups.

We have a chain-link fence, and a taller privacy fence is not an option.

How do I politely tell her that her dog hurts my head and I need to recharge by being alone? I’ve already told her that barking dogs give me headaches, but nothing has changed.

GENTLE READER: As this neighbor puts their dog’s needs ahead of those of humans, Miss Manners suggests you respond in kind: “Hamlet isn’t feeling very sociable today. Perhaps the two of them can have a playdate next week when his head is feeling better. We’ll reach out.”

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband and I are good friends with a couple who were kind enough to cook us some delicious food.

They brought back ingredients from their country of origin the last time they visited family there, and made us a dish using a recipe from their grandma. They even went to the trouble of freezing the dish so they could give us a few containers of it the last time we all hung out.

The next day, my husband heated up the food in the oven. He and I enjoyed the meal immensely … and then we both got food poisoning that lasted a couple days.

Now, we’re supposed to go out to dinner with this couple. After all the trouble they went through of making us something special, they will obviously want to know how we liked it.

I’m not sure if the polite thing to do is to tell a half-truth — that we loved the food and appreciate them making it for us — or the full truth: that we loved the food, we appreciate them making it for us, but that it made us sick.

This is now the second time that friends have made the kind gesture of cooking for us, only to give us food poisoning. (It occurred with a different couple before.) Now that it’s happened again, I’m wondering if etiquette dictates transparency, or if we should stick to the half-truth like we did the first time.

If we knew these friends were going to be eating some of what they made for us, it would feel like a public service to say something, but that’s not the case here.

GENTLE READER: The more concerning question is: Why are all of your friends trying to poison you?

Even though this couple may not be consuming the food themselves, it would still be a public service to warn them about transporting perishable food internationally. “It was delicious,” you may say, “but I’m afraid something in the dish did not agree with us. I wonder if the ingredients you flew in might have lost something in transit.”

Miss Manners would not go so far as to say that you should take a break from your friends’ cooking, but she might recommend that until this unfortunate streak dies down, you make sure to see them take a bite before you do.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: How can I become a better listener and not think I’m always right?

GENTLE READER: Practice.

Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, gentlereader@missmanners.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.