Disclaimer #1: I’m a dog person, always have been and have 2 dogs now.
Disclaimer #2: We have a fenced in (chainlink) back yard, but even at that our lab occasionally gets out.
So my wife and I have been in our house for about 6-7 years now. Had dogs the whole time.
We have neighbors on both sides of our house and neighbors across the street in a quiet neighborhood.
On our left our neighbors include a fall down drunk guy that literally comes home from work every night around 6 and is usually wasted. Seriously, he fell down last fall getting out of his car and laughed. He’s about 50 or so but he’s a nice guy, always talks (usually in a slur that you can barely understand) and chats up with us if we are both outside.
His wife is a bitch. In 7 years she has never waved, talked, said hi or acknowledged me or my wife or our kids. I know she’s a bitch because I golfed in a league where her sister was the owner of the course and she said she’s a bitch so it’s not just me. The wife has two sons, both mid to late 20’s still living at home, both skinny white kids trying to pretend they are gangsters from the hood. The oldest son is in jail for something right now, not sure what, the younger son is an ex marine and quite the hot head. Came home drunk one night last fall and was beating the shit out of his girlfriends car and screaming he’s gonna kill her, cops are up at around 3 in the morning and diffuse the situation. In an otherwise calm and peaceful neighborhood these people are the turds we just can’t flush.
So the neighbors have dogs too. The parents have a wiener dog and a springer. They are pretty harmless although the springer and wiener dog do dig at our fence trying to get in to play with our dogs. One time the wiener dog made it through and our babysitter took it back and the bitch lady screamed at her for ‘enticing’ her dog under the fence! She seriously threatened to call the cops on our babysitter because her dog dug into our yard! See, I told you she was a bitch.
The son, or sons, are fascinated with pitt bulls and have had up to 3-4 of them at any time. Right now they have 2. Their yard is not fenced in and they let them out without a leash and unattended. Last friday my lab starts going nuts and there one is on our front porch running around and the bitchy lady is trying to get ahold of it to get it back home.
My wife and I have 4 kids, ages 1, 3, 10 and 13. I enjoy playing outside with them including playing in our driveway letting the little ones ride their tricycles or Barbie jeeps and so on. Yet my wife and I are fearful that one of the pittbulls may get out and with our kids being used to and not afraid of dogs, well who knows what might happen. They may be the nicest dogs in the world but it’s a chance we don’t want to take. So lately we play outside until the neighbors come home then go in the back yard or inside for fear of one of their dogs coming over.
So at work yesterday I say something to one of the supervisors of the township we live in as our office is right next to theirs and we talk frequently. He says something to a township cop who calls and talks to my wife. Turns out 3-4 other neighbors have also recently called about these dogs so the cop says he’s going to go talk to them and tell them they’ve had multiple complaints and to keep the dogs under control and so on. The cop assures us it will be made clear that these were anonymous calls. Sure enough as I’m headed home from work my wife calls and says the son came over pounding on our door telling her it was a mistake to call the cops and we’re in for a fight and things are going to get interesting and our dogs are mean and growl at him (we have a lab and a shitzu) and so on. So now I call the cop, he apparently calls the kid and says it wasn’t us that complained but it was MULTIPLE neighbors and going over threatening my wife was a mistake. He calls my wife and tells her about this and says all the kid kept saying was our dogs aren’t on leashes (they are fenced in) and he’s going to call the cops every time they are out in our backyard evein if it is fenced in because technichally they should be leashed and will call every time they get out and so on. The cop tells him to worry about his own dogs and leave it at that.
So now it looks like our peaceful neighborhood is headed for a good old fashioned neighborly feud. Boy this will be a fun summer…
