We've had difficulties with this since April or May, but I didn't want to go around posting it on the internet because I didn't want to go around bashing my classmates' father. But I need to know what to do now and to vent.
Let's start here: One night my Dog Rei Rei got into my neighbor's backyard. I went over there to go get her and the man of the house answered and let her out. He strictly and obnoxiously said, "You really need to get your fence fixed." He sounded condescending.
I let it pass and put my Dog back in the house and closed the doggy-door. We fixed the hole the next morning.
Apparently my Mom had to do this again one day, and again our neighbor was rude about it.
Our dogs do have a digging problem. It didn't start until our Dachshund discovered that girl dogs existed. We got him neutered and the problem stopped almost all together.
One night, I couldn't find Rusty (Dachshund) I looked for hours and couldn't find him. My neighbor said he hadn't seen him, but said he would keep a look out. (And for once I thought he was being friendly)
Later on, I discovered that Rusty had somehow got himself trapped under our neighbor's house. Our neighbor was pissed. He took us into the backyard to show us the hole where Rusty got into. We apologized for the trouble.
Condescendingly he says things like, "I can't handle this anymore." "I'm calling animal control if this happens again."
...Wtf, It only happened twice on my watch, and we took responsibility for it all three times that it happened. He didn't even know they were out there in his yard, thus they obviously weren't bothering him.
Our dog was stuck under his house. We tried calling him and he wouldn't come (he always comes) and when we told the neighbor and asked if we should call the fire department, he said, "I don't think the fire department wants to come and get a dog from underneath the house." Well no shit. But they get cats out of trees. We asked him what we should do then, and he said, "Call animal control." Yeah right, we're gonna call animal control on our own dog.
We told him that we had tried fixing the fence a multiple of times. We've tried electric fencing, cinder blocks, and probably a few other things. So we asked if he had any suggestions, "Well I don't know what to tell you, but you better get it fixed." No shit.
I mentioned that we had Rusty neutered so that he wouldn't do this sort of thing anymore. And our neighbor said, "That's irrelevant." IT IS RELEVANT! Rusty stopped getting out of our yard and going out into the street. However he finds it interesting to get into the neighbors yard now.
We resolved to get Rusty out in the morning. But luckily Rusty managed to get out and come home a few hours later. His collar was torn up.
We went out and put chicken-wire around the back fence and that kept them from getting out for 3-4 months.
Today, my Mom came home and found a letter on our door from animal control.
"Neighbor complains about dog in his backyard. Please fix the problem before we have to take further action. Thank you."
FFfffffff What the fuck?! Why didn't he come and tell us? He never at least comes and tells us. There's no need to drag the animal control into this.
I agree with him, our dogs shouldn't be in his backyard, and we've been trying to fix it. But the fact that he's been so rude about it and hasn't actually brought it to our attention (we've always noticed first and gotten them back home) makes it ridiculous.
I would understand it if it had happened a multiple of times and he brought it to our attention and if our dogs had threatened him. But they haven't. And he hasn't done anything about it. If he wants them to stop coming over so bad, then maybe he should get off his high stool and maybe help us by at least throwing out some suggestions. The fact that his kids have tried putting cinderblocks and bricks on their side of the fence proves just how difficult it is to contain our dogs and yet his ragging on us about it.
But apparently his cat can come over into our front yard and take a shit in our garden and lay on our front porch, thus torturing our dogs is okay?
We're considering getting even with that.
"Oh, you can't help that." Yes you fucking can. It's called keeping your cat inside.
I don't want our dogs to get taken away or euthanized.
They're good dogs and don't do anything that bad. We're good dog owners, we love our dogs and as of right now we're trying to cure our flea problem so that we can all be more comfortable.
I am probably being very unreasonable right now too. But I'm just so freaking angry and I don't know what to do. I understand that he need to keep our dogs in our yard, and it doesn't just stress our neighbor out, it stresses us out too. So don't think we're just lazy and don't care.
So what else can we do to keep the dogs from getting out? I suggested railroad guards, which have worked in the past (they're just heavy and nasty looking) and that seems like the only option.
Plleeassee help.
