An Open Letter To The Neighbors

Dear Neighbor Family:

I write to you on behalf of your neighbors many of whom have the same issue that we do but don’t want to rock the boat to speak to you about it. We have become fed up with the situation, though, and I have taken the step of writing you this letter.

I am writing in regards to your lack of care for your pets.

Brody runs not just the small collection of houses on the cul-de-sac, he in fact roams all over. He has been found at the local pool in the summertime. He has been found at nearby elementary school. He has crisscrossed dangerous roads in the process. This is not safe for him and if you do not begin to keep him home he will one day be found dead on the road. I know your reaction will be to laugh it off but I am very serious.

In addition to the danger posed to Brody by cars and wildlife, he is a nuisance. He does damage to other people’s property. He poops on other people’s property. He gets into the trash left for collection on trash day. He bothers other people’s pets. It is not just Maggie I am speaking about and it extends into the houses in the nearby subdivision. It’s unacceptable.

I know your solution to this is “call me and I’ll fix it.” The problem is that we should not have to be responsible for monitoring the actions of your pet. If it were once or twice, that would be fine. But it continues to happen. The words “I’m sorry” become totally meaningless if you do nothing to change the behavior about which are apologizing.

You have already had one pet severely injured and left with a permanent disability due to your negligence. Do you wish to have another?

There are laws in our community regarding pet care and it is strictly against those laws to let your pet run like Brody does. He is supposed to be either contained on your property or on a leash at all times when off your property. Neither of these things occur and your neighbors pay the price. If Brody will not respect the invisible fencing you installed, it is up to you to either put in fencing he cannot escape or to make sure is on a leash at all times when outdoors.

Brody is a sweet dog and he doesn’t deserve to be injured or killed due to the fact that you refuse to properly contain him. Your neighbors shouldn’t have to deal with his running and destructive tendancies.

Please keep Brody home. If not for the sake of your neighbors, do it for the health and wellbeing of your pet.

Robert Frost Had The Right Idea

I’ve mentioned before that we have a Beagle named Maggie. Like all Beagles she is slightly smelly, incredibly neurotic, ruled by her nose, and loud when she howls. She also likes to spend a great deal of her time outside wandering the yard having an extended prowl and sniff. We have a lot of wildlife around here - chipmunks, squirrels, deer, rabbits, raccoons, and the occasional coyote - so the yard always has some new smell to be discovered by her inquisitive nose. In an effort to keep her safe from wildlife that might harm her (she was attacked by a deer the first week we lived here) and to keep her from being a nuisance to our neighbors, we installed an invisible fence and trained her to obey it.

She does very well with it. She doesn’t generally approach the borders of the fence, she knows exactly where she can and cannot go without getting zapped and if she does wander into the fence line she jumps back in bounds quickly.

The point is we make an effort not only keep her safe but to avoid annoying our neighbors with our pet.

The same cannot be said about one of our next door neighbors.

About a year or so ago, they adopted a dog from Animal Friends. The dog is in large part Walker Hound (aka the Treeing Walker Coonhound) and as a result has many of the same characteristics of our beagle but is about 3 times her size. Brody is as sweet as they come - he’s friendly, he obeys voice commands, he loves to play with people and other pets (apparently he LURVES cats). Like many hounds, Brody also has separation anxiety and when he is left alone in his house, he gets destructive. Very destructive.

My neighbors’ solution to this problem is to not leave him in the house when they are gone. If they cannot take Brody wherever it is they are headed, he is left loose to roam the neighborhood at will. He does not keep to his yard - once again, being a hound, he is ruled by his nose - and does whatever he damn well pleases no matter whose property he is on. They installed invisible fencing and then did not take the time to properly train the dog to it so once he figured out that the shock stopped as long as he just kept going, he stopped paying any attention to the fence at all. It didn't matter how hard they shocked him at that point.

He digs. He poops in other people’s yards. He trees other people’s cats. He gets into garbage. He poops on back porches. He barks at cats/squirrels/whatever he has treed. He drives other people’s dogs absolutely wild. He wanders far and wide across a range of busy and dangerous roads that often take out animals the size of a full grown white-tailed buck.

His owners, you ask? Oblivious. They don’t care. Their response is “just call if you have a problem.” So, you call. They take care of whatever the issue is. They apologize.

The next day the dog is out doing the same thing again.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

This has been going on for over a year. The husband of this family happens to be a lawyer and should know what the laws are regarding nuisance pets in our area. I’m sure he’s aware and just doesn’t give a damn. But it makes the rest of the neighborhood loath to get into it with these people. The wife is totally oblivious. She just doesn’t see the problem. She thinks everyone is fine with it and when something is mentioned to her, she always has an excuse as to why it either a) wasn’t Brody or b) isn’t a big deal.

She’s always happy to offer an apology. But that’s all it ever is.

Now, I have spent a lot of time over the last year trying to beat into Liam’s head that sorry is all well and good but if you don’t change your behavior and stop doing whatever it is you’re sorry for, then the apology means nothing. He seems to be getting it.

If my 4 year old gets it, she should be able to figure this out, too.

So, I’ve taken to yelling at Brody to get the hell off my lawn every chance I get and I’m just waiting for her to approach me to try and “clear the air.”

At which point the air isn’t going to get a whole lot less clear as I give her an earful of what the neighborhood thinks of her, her dog, and her non-existent pet ownership skills. I’m the daughter of two veterinarians. I know whereof I speak on such topics.

It’s probably going to make me “that” neighbor but I was already halfway there anyway. In for a penny, in for a pound...