Gotta love neighbors
I had a lovely altercation with one of my neighbors yesterday that culminated in two non-veiled threats to my ducks’ lives. Lovely.
It all started last year when this next-street neighbor got a German Shephard. Then the dog somehow bred with a bitch and they ended up with a second German Shephard. These dogs are allowed to run loose fairly often. It wasn’t so irritating over the winter since I’m inside a lot and I probably didn’t notice them running around as much as they probably were. But since the Spring and Summer has come, I’ve had them running around on my property probably no less than a dozen times. I’ve found dog shit in my yard. These are large dogs that run wildly around and have no manners. They also bark a bit aggressively sometimes.
One time when one of the dogs was on my property I nicely walked over to the owners house and asked him to come get his dog. When I first got to his house, I found them lounging around a kiddy pool in complete relaxation. I walked up and asked the guy if his dogs were out. His non-urgent reply: “Why? Have you seen them?” My reply: “One of them is in my yard now. Can you come get it?” He jumped into action in some big show of concern that was clearly fake. I nicely explained to him that since dogs tend to kills ducks, that he would have to keep his dog from running around the neighborhood. I also nicely told him that since I have young children and can’t easily come get him every time his dogs are out, that I would be forced to call the humane society if one was on my property in the future. He came up with any number of half-assed excuses about how his children let out the dogs, or how the dogs break their chain. He also admitted that his dogs have killed cats before. Blah, blah, blah. I’ve called the police or humane society since then several times.
A few weeks ago, my family decided to take an after-dinner walk over to the next street to visit a friend of mine. My friend, BTW, has also had trouble with these dogs jumping in her small pond, making her fearful that the dogs will rip her pond-liner. On this occasion, as I walked down the street with my family, the two German Shephards were in the road and came running at us, barking aggressively once again. We were forced to turn around and take a different route for our walk, skipping the visit to my friend’s house. I had Arp call the police.
Last week, on the 4th, my friend from the next street found the dogs running loose again. When she knocked at the idiot’s door to tell him, the door was answered by a 4-year-old child that invited my friend in and told her that her parents weren’t home. Lovely.
And the culmination of the story: the dogs were running loose yesterday and the idiot was riding around on a quad trying to catch them. I was in our yard with both kids and my husband. The guy stopped his quad and told me that since I had told the police that his dogs were vicious (which I didn’t) that now his dogs had to be evaluated and they might be put to sleep. Implying that it was my fault. So I told him that he should keep his dogs in his own f*cking yard. Yes, I used the F-word. It came tumbling out of my mouth before I could stop myself. It’s kind of funny since I’ve spent a lot of time, in the last 10 years, lecturing my husband on how to be diplomatic. And here I am letting the curses loose in one second flat.
So anyway, the idiot spend a few minutes telling me what a terrible mother I was for using the f-word in front of them and how I should feel terrible about it, and how they were going to turn out just like me some day (wouldn’t that be a pity!). Then he told me that I had better make sure that my ducks don’t leave my property or they might be shot. He drives off and comes back not one minute later for another lovely threat. “Watch out or your ducks are going to be dinner!” I called the police, of course.
Answer me this: What is worse…having someone imply, in front of my kids, that their dogs will be put to death due to me….OR….saying the f-word in front of my kids to a big idiot. For the record, I’m not feeling too guilty about what I said. It wasn’t the first time my kids have heard their mother say the f-word, and I doubt very much it will be the last.
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on Saturday, July 7th, 2007 at 3:16 pm and is filed under raising ducks, rant.
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I’m fine with diplomacy, but it really seems that the police should have done something by now, considering how often you’ve said you’d called the cops. Also, I would think you have leash laws where you live, and this many violations would have earned the owners the loss of their dogs. In addition to endangering the neighborhood, the dogs are themselves in danger of getting hurt, assuming there are neighbors, equally as annoyed by these dogs, and perhaps less diplomatic than you.
And his argument about your use of profanity proves he understands the weakness of his argument.
Yes, there are leash laws. But the police usually claim that it is the job of the humane society to take dogs that are without leashes. So if the humane society is closed (after business hours), the police can only warn the owner to come get their dog and leave a message for the humane society. The police refuse to pick up dogs themselves. I’m guessing my complaint on the day when I was unable to walk on the street with my family probably finally qualified for the police to do something since the dogs were obviously aggressive.
Even when the humane society picks up an unleashed dog, they have to release the dog to the owner (with a small fine, I believe starting at $25) unless there is an allegation of abuse or aggression. So yes, it has taken this long, and with great effort on my part, for something to happen. It’s almost like you have to wait for someone to get bitten before someone will take action.