So onto the title of my post: one of my biggest pet peeves is irresponsible dog ownership, especially if it puts other people in danger. Invisible fences are popular in this neighborhood, even though they don't work all that well (in my opinion). There is this one house on the corner of my street that has this little mean beagle mix and a bigger Lab mix. The little dog has gotten out on 5 separate occasions and chased me nipping at my heels as I was running by. Today both the bigger dog and the little dog got out and ganged up on Peanut.
Luckily I had left Faith at home with my husband, so I was able to fully concentrate on getting the dogs away from Peanut (she is such a pansy). They were nipping at her and growling at me. A few carefully placed kicks (hey, I'm still using my kung fu!) and yells made the dogs change their mind and let us pass.
I went on my run (3.5 miles in 26:30!) and when I came back into the neighborhood, the dogs were still out. Judging by the cars in the driveway, lots of people were home, but I guess no one cared about the dogs enough to check on them. I ran Peanut home and then ran back to their house to talk to them (nicely) about their dogs getting out. I didn't mention that if it happens again, I'm calling Animal Control (threatening seems so un-neighborly) but that is what's going to happen. Luckily, their dogs didn't break the skin when they bit at Peanut, but I was still pretty pissed off. Hopefully it won't happen again!
Definitely stink eye worthy
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| I will kick your mean dog into next week |
Faith's version:
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| Peanut is my buddy, don't mess with her! |
I HATE invisible fences too!! My brother and sister-in-law have one in our yard for the dog, and I am definitely against it. If a dog wants out enough, he'll get shocked to do it, and then won't go back in because he doesn't want to get shocked again. Thankfully, their dog (Rocco) is also a pansy, and when training him on the electric fence, he got shocked and now won't even go anywhere near the border. Good for you for letting your neighbors know. Did they seem receptive?
ReplyDeleteUgh - we have dogs get out in our neighborhood quite often, soooo annoying. Once we had a dog follow us for our entire walk and we ended up keeping him our garage all night while we tried to find the owners. We eventually had to have someone from the city come pick him up and take him to the pound. Apparently he was a frequent visitor...
ReplyDeleteomg, thank goodness you didn't have Faith with you, too! I think that's horrible! It's nice of you to go talk to them first - hopefully that resolves the problem. But it's definitely NOT okay for tht type of thing to be going on! Have some responsibility for your animals, people!
ReplyDeletei am terrified of dogs. i just wish they used invisible fences around here. my next door neighbor has 5 dogs (not to mention peacocks, turkeys, chickens, ducks, alpacas, pigs) THAT ALL RUN WILD! and POOP IN MY YARD. and scare me to DEATH! just yesterday i went out to my garage with baby to get in my car and there is a dog in it and of course it barks at me and scares the living crap out of me. a different dog once held me and a baby hostage in our own driveway. this summer we are putting up a fence to keep animals and their poop out of our yard since baby will be running around out there. sooo annoying!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you didn't have Faith with you! I'm okay with invisible fences, but as an owner you need to be aware if they work for your dog or not. If they do, fantastic, but if they don't, you obviously need a different solution.
ReplyDeleteThe owner of the dogs was very casual about it and he said he'd check on his fence. We have lots of voles in this area and they nibble on the underground wires, so that's why we have such a high failure rate for invisible fences here (and also why I have a real fence!)
ReplyDeleteGood for you for talking to the owners--I think I'd be too chicken to do that!
ReplyDeleteI don't like the invisible fence concept.
ReplyDeleteLuckily, most of the dogs in my neighborhood are under control... one likes to get out and the owner never seems to understand that my dog is NOT good on a leash, arrgh!
The MOST annoying thing is the woman on my street that leaves tuna out every morning for the feral cats. Now there are so many cats running around wild near her house...not good.
Dogs are my biggest fear so reading that invisible fences don't always work was terrifying. I am constantly preying that they work when I run by one. That is terrible about your neighbors, good for you for standing up for yourself and Peanut! My in laws have a dog and they are actually on the other end of the irresponsible spectrum. They keep her tied to the door on like a 3 foot leash 24/7 and claim that she gets walked, but I've never seen it, and I've stayed there for 3-4 nights at a time. It's really sad. Your time on your run is SUPER!
ReplyDeleteInvisible fences only work if the dog is trained not to go through the fence. We have invisible fence (which I orginally was worried about bc we live on a road where people drive 90 mph). We spent a lot of time making sure the dogs would never (no matter what went by) get tempted to get out of the yard. So far they have never left. Another family on our road has invisible fence with big scary dogs but they just bark at me. I think as long as the dog is trained and the fence is cranked up to the appropriate level all is well. I can't stand people who let their dogs do whatever they want either...so annoying. Bad dog parenting is almost as annoying as bad child parenting, if you know what I mean;-)
ReplyDeleteyikes. thats scary! Glad nothing too bad happened. Totally stink eye worthy ;)
ReplyDeleteI grew up with greater swiss mountain dogs (huge) and they always got out, i felt horrible....the town was pretty good about it-but although they are ridic nice, they're big and scary looking!!!!
ReplyDeleteI can see the resemblance! I'm kind of afraid of dogs, not going to lie, I love them but didn't have one growing up so every time one tries to jump on me I panic.Sorry for poor Peanut=(
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