How To Keep The Neighbors Dogs Out Of My Yard

[Bunny]

I was discussing this with family on Christmas Eve and I was saying that how this is a huge meltdown trigger for difficult child when my sister in law, who has no kids and has no idea what it's like to be a parent, let alone the parent of a difficult child child, says to me, "He needs to get over that. He's 13. There is no reason for him to be afraid of anything." And it was not so much that she said it because it all honestly I expect such things from her, but it was the WAY she said it.

I have pretty much decided that if the dogs get into my yard again and I find them there I am going to open the gates and let them roam free. Maybe if she is afraid that they will get of my yard she will work harder to make sure that they don't get out of hers!

 

[Star*]

Bunny,

Your sister in law is insensitive, unknowledgeable, and her behavior and comments were unnecessary. I would however suggest that your son find out WHY dogs are such a trigger for him and having meltdowns only because to have fears are healthy - it keeps us alive, but to have meltdowns over our fears is unhealthy, and can affect us life-long.

Your neighbor in my humble opinion should not make HER dogs, and HER property your problem, and therefor is putting you and your family under UNDO stress and problems. Think about it - Her dogs, and their lack of concern for caring for them crossed over into YOUR holiday and caused a rift with you and your sister in law - had the woman next door been taking care properly of her animals? It would have been a non-issue with YOUR family. Something that should have never happened.

I'm still going to say if someone "SEES" you letting those animals out of your yard, and they cause harm to another possibly traumatized child, or cause an accident - I think I would want to know in MY state what the laws are and if I can be held responsible. I realize your frustration and respect it, and often doing the right thing when you are so frustrated doesn't seem fair. But what seems most unfair is these people are ALLOWED to have dogs that they don't care for, cause problems that they don't seem to own responsibility for - and at this point? I think I would contact IN PERSON the local dog warden and work my way up the ranks to City Manager. If the problem was NOT getting solved with the dog catcher (ACO) dog warden what have you - keep in mind everyone has a boss....and going in PERSON to the office with a written, notarized letter stating your intentions about the lack of responsibility and problems YOUR own house has with said lack of responsibility should STOP the problem....not put a bandaid on it.


Just kibble for thought.

 

[lmf64]

OKay, I've read the responses and have a couple thoughts. Huskies are jumpers and runners and they will never train those dogs to stay in a fenced yard. Huskies need to be exercised for at least two hours a day to even begin to wear them out and I mean heavy duty exercising. We used to take ours for a run. Someone on a bike pedaling as fast as they could while holding a leash and doing so for at least 45 minutes to an hour at a time. Taking a Huskie for a walk is not exercising it.
As far as the presents the dogs are leaving in your yard, well I have been known to deliver them to the front step of the offenders home (while crossing my fingers they don't return until after dark and forgot to turn the porch light on). I used to have a neighbor with a rottie. I had a minpin. They would tie out their rottie in the back so the dog wasn't in their front yard leaving piles which they wouldn't clean up anyway. Well, the rottie could and did use my yard as it's toilet. I asked them to clean up after their dog and got told I couldn't prove it was their dog since I had a dog of my own. Uh yeah, my 8 pound dog leaves 5 pound piles. Anyway, after a few attempts at being nice and cleaning up after their dog so I could mow the lawn (and having to ask them to take their dog in so I could even mow) I gave up. One day they left early in the morning, taking the dog with them, and I cleaned up the piles and dumped them on their front porch. They got home late that night and tracked their dog's feces into their house on their white carpet.
As far as the dogs being in your yard, call every time! and Don't take the old song and dance about them being busy.

 

[DammitJanet]

Any ACO unit worth their salt will handle this. Dogs shouldnt be getting out of their yard. Heavens, even in my bass ackwards county where it is legal for dogs to run free off of the leash, my neighbor called animal control on me because "I had a vicious pit bull in my yard trying to climb his fence and attack him." Nothing could be further from the truth but Animal Control was out here the next day. They left a note on my door for me to call them and I did. The ACO officer actually saw my puppy and told me he realized my dog was NOT a pit bull and NOT vicious at all. Thankfully he agreed with me on breed. I told him I got her from a kid and that they said her momma was a mutt and the daddy was an american bull dog. The ACO said thats what he would guess looking at her, pretty much a nice looking mutt. YES!!!!!!!!!!!! I dont want the label pit bull on her anywhere because of what that can do. However, knowing my neighbor the way I do, I keep Abby on a chain right now until I can get a fence put up. That is the next thing on my to do list. I have priced the products needed and it wont be that expensive.

 

[flutterby]

As lmf said, Huskies are hard to contain. They are roamers - it's in their genes. I know someone who had a Husky that could get out of an 8' foot fence (he wasn't digging). Even well exercised Huskies have this innate need to roam. However, the neighbors shouldn't be so flippant about it. Even if the dogs weren't triggering difficult child, the owners should be supervising the dogs better, cleaning up messes their dogs make in your yard, and certainly not blaming *you* because the gate to *your* fence was open. Huskies are my favorite breed, but I won't have one because I cannot give it the exercise it needs and I know I couldn't keep it contained.

Wish I had some better advice for you. Here, our police department has a dedicated officer to deal with "Community Relations" (neighbor issues, dog issues, etc), plus an ACO. I guess I would just document, document, document.

 

[witzend]

Do you have a community mediation office available? You could try to take advantage of that to come to an agreement. It usually ends up being something along the lines of they understand that they need to keep their dogs in their yard, and you understand that sometimes they will get into your yard. What they also need to understand is that there will consequences within the confines of the law if their dogs get into your yard. Your yard, your property. That's why it's your fault if you let them out of your yard and injure someone. You might have to have a friend load them into the car and take them to the pound. After all, you don't want them.

We did this with a truly obnoxious neighbor who believed that no one should ever make noise that she could hear in her yard. She'd get crazy and put her speakers outside to blast heavy metal in retaliation for an 8 year old's mid afternoon birthday party. If you called and talked to her she'd use foul mouthed language but if you reported her to police she'd turn on the "Oh, it just breaks my mommy heart that the neighbor just abandons their children out in the yard and won't let them come into the house." I audio-taped her response to my phone call asking her to turn down her music. It was legal in our state so long as one party is aware that you're audio recording. I video taped her blasting music and telling children they could "rot in ----" for all she cared. We got to mediation and she pulled the holier than thou stuff and I let her go to town. Then I played my tapes. Here's the agreement we came to.

If she has a problem with a neighbor's noise outside the legal time that you can make noise, she will approach or call the neighbor to ask them to turn it down. If she blasts her stereo or starts swearing, I call the cops and record her behavior. (Oh, she didn't like that but I was within my rights.) It took her about 4 months to decide to sell her house. YAY! One for the win column!

 

[buddy]

I think it sounds like great advice to protect yourself from.liability. I know this may soumd iffy but, many people just leave their gates open though, if it happened to be open is it your issue? And if you see the dogs run off, seems a great time to call the aco and say some dogs got in your yard and just ran off, etc.......so you've done your part to protect the dogs and any potential victims. Id be so irritated. They need to give those pups a better life.

 

[Star*]

http://www.yardguard.com/store/yardguard_dog_repellents.html

- while not exactly what you're looking for----- if you use 1/1 solution of Vinegar......it will kill plants and grass. We use it for weed killer here at the DA Ranch. But dogs dont like the smell of that, citrus, ispopol alcolhol, and black pepper. All would have to be reapplied often until the dogs got the idea.....so it's an ongoing expense.

DF said he'd wait till they came in your yard, load them up, and take them to the shelter. Two or three times of that CASH COW and they'll figure out you're not playing. I know he's done this....but the poor things were so abused. And yet??????? We still have "Dingus".....lol.

 

[InsaneCdn]

If your gate is *always* open except when you specifically close it to keep in the kids... then if the neighbors dogs get escape into your yard and out through the gate... that is NOT the same as opening the gate and letting them out.

 

[DammitJanet]

Have you actually called the Animal Control unit and asked to speak with a supervisor about this? I know different areas handle animal control differently. In some places it is under the health dept like in my county and in other places it is a part of the sheriff's office like where Jamie works. Jamie has the powers of arrest, my county doesnt. My county would have to take my dogs in and then go to the police and work up a case if the cops so choose. With Jamie, he has all the say so.

If your town is under the sheriff's dept you are in a much better position for them to actually do something. It always seems to me that those types of ACU's work harder. Jamie has actually had to get all sorts of animals out of odd places. This would be a no brainer for him. In fact just a few weeks ago he had to chase a loose dog all through a subdivision because it got out of someone's yard and he darned near got eaten by two boxers! 2 very quiet and stealthy boxers.

 

[buddy]

Thanks ic, I didn't say it as well.

 

[FrankieRoss]

There is some good advice and some not-so-good advice listed on this thread. You're problem is with your neighbor, the dog is just doing what dogs do.

There's a site called badneighboradvice that addresses this situation in a step-by-step way.

 

[FrankieRoss]

Make sure, by the way, that you spray anywhere they have "left presents" with a product designed to cover up the smell for them. Dogs will go where they have gone before- your yard may have inadvertently been deemed "potty yard" by them.

 

[DammitJanet]

Not that long ago we moved from the country to inside a city where my dog...pretty large dog...had to get used to living inside a fence in the back yard. She actually loves being in the yard but we bring her in several times a day and at night. Most of the fence belongs to the city and it is about 5 foot high. The rest of the fence was put up by the landlord and it is only 3 foot. We had to train her fast that she couldnt jump the gate especially. It only took us about a week of whipping her butt every time we saw her even thinking about it. We did keep her on a chain for awhile that allowed her to cover the entire back yard but in the last month or so she hasnt even tried to go over the fence.

What worries me is when we go home. I have to get a fence up as soon as we get back. I think I am going to do a cattle fence and put chicken wire around the outside. She isnt particularly a digger at the fence line. She will dig near a tree to get to cool dirt though.

 

[TerryJ2]

Great ideas here!
You surely have different laws than we do. We have a leash ordinance.
And we still have dogs everywhere. We have called animal control on our neighbor's dog soooo many times. Only this summer has she put a leash on the dog and walked it. We had so much poop in our yard from everyone else's dogs it was a nightmare. Can't tell you the times I walked into the house with-my shoes a mess. So disheartening.
Good luck!

 

[Chris Snyder]

Sounds like nothing can be done. I'm having the same issue with little dogs - probably coming over because of mine - two over there, one is a digger. The fourth time (I wasn't home) it ripped out a little screen I have at base of fence so my dog could look out to the front - then both got loose. Showed on neighborhood newsletter that her dogs were found. I left the screen off. Woman is irresponsible in most ways about outdoor stuff. I'm not willing to spend a dime or 10 minutes dealing with other people's responsibility (since it's recurring) - I spent days fixing the fence (because it affects us both - she paid half, only a few bucks since most was reused). If it was my dog, I'd do whatever it takes (burying galvanized wire sounds good. I'd just leave the gate open and let nature take its course.

 

[New Leaf]

Hi Chris and welcome to the forum. You have posted to an old thread so there may not be much response. If this is your real name, you may want to change to something else. We are all anonymous here due to the nature of our posts and this site is viewable by the public.
Feel free to start a thread and share your story. We try our best to help one another out.
leafy

 

[BusynMember]

By whom answered this thread, I think it is a very old post. Most do not post here anymore.

 

[Javajoy01]

I joined this forum solely for this thread so I apologize for bumping such an old thread but I’m
Looking for updates. I’m going through this now with two huskies. They dug under my fence, I never saw the hole and my puppy of two months got under and the huskies killed her. We called the cops and ac and nothing was done. We cemented under the fence and also imbedded fencing and they are still digging and damaging the fence. They are charging the fence when we take our dogs out. The neighbors don’t seem to care, nothing was done on their end even though their dogs caused the damage and killed a dog of mine. I don’t know what else to do. I’ve been documenting and even filmed them digging and nobody cares. We can’t enjoy our yard and live in fear of our dogs lives. I’m out of options on what to do other then to electrify the fence but I don’t know how that will stop digging and if anything happens to their dogs we will be in trouble even though we have the dead dog. Ideas, suggestions?

 

[ahhjeez]

Javajoy I'm so sorry about your puppy. I think if I was in your shoes I would consult an attorney to see what my options are. I wish you the best.