Last week, while my husband was in the garage cutting wood on a table saw, three dogs (all Boxers) ran through our garage while chasing our cat. The dogs ran through the garage, and unplugged the table saw while Austin was mid-cut in a board, and they continued outside the back door and into our backyard. The cat, thankfully, made it to the roof of our house before the dogs got to him, and so the dogs started loitering in our yard. Pretty soon, one owner (our neighbors daughter) of the dogs came to retrieve them, and Austin kindly mentioned that she should control their dogs.
'Please control your dogs'.
That is all he said to this woman as she was dragging them by the collar back to their home. See, the dogs belong to our next door neighbors, and the dogs are constantly getting out of their fenced-in yard. Once they are free, they run like wild beasts through the neighborhood peeing and pooping on everyone's yards and vehicles, and the owners are mysteriously oblivious. Oh, I think it's important to mention that these are the very dogs that I have been afraid of since one of them bit me back in January. So, needless to say, I am very leery of these dogs because I believe them to be unpredictable.
Moments before the dogs came ripping through our property, Jader and I climbed into one of our cars that was parked in the driveway to play while Austin was using the table saw. I didn't want Jader near the power tools just in case some freak accident happened. If she had been in the garage while those dogs came through the room, she could have been run over by them. They obviously weren't paying attention to anything besides catching our cat (who was on our property the entire time of this incident).
The purpose of this post is to make mention of how my neighbors reacted to the situation. After Austin asked that they control the dogs, the father to this woman that Austin talked to, came over to our garage and said confrontationally, 'If you have a problem with our dogs, you need to bring it up with me. My daughter's sensitive'. Then he walked away.
He didn't apologize for his dogs being loose (which was his daughter's fault because she left the gate open), he didn't say sorry for the dogs coming through our property and scaring the S*^! out of our cat, nor did he say sorry for the potentional accident his dogs could have caused. He blamed us for hurting his daughters feelings and walked away.
Austin decided he should apologize to the man's daughter, but didn't really know what for. Being the good man that he is, he walked over to the neighbors to apologize anyway. Before he even approached the gate, the dogs were jumping in his face and barking at him. He waited at the gate to see if anyone would exit the house for him to talk to.
Our neighbor came outside, and before Austin even opened his mouth, he started saying, 'Our dogs have never bothered anyone.' (Oh really? I was pretty bothered when one of them bit me!!) And his wife piped in, 'Dogs chase cats. That's just what they do. They can't help it'. Oh, so now it's our fault, again!, that we have a cat. Geez, people! Get a clue.
Anyway, Austin said he wanted to talk to his daughter, and she came out and he apologized for hurting her feelings. I mean, hasn't anyone ever told her 'No!' before. Does she get everything she wants? To this day I am still flabergasted about the whole situation. I still can't believe we never recieved an apology, but were treated like it is our fault. Needless to say, we will be avoiding their house even more, and we consider this strike two. If those dogs even come near our daughter, there will be no second thoughts before the gun is pulled out. And, I'm even thinking that the next time they are loose, the owners won't get a courtesy call from me as they have in the past, I'll just call animal control. I refuse to put up with ignorant animal owners that are willing to put other people's safety after the concern of their own animals.
Okay, I feel a lot better venting about this. Thanks, Internet. Oh, and I should mention that I really love animals. I am not an animal hater, but I just don't like these dogs.
2 comments:
That is just plain crazy! If they were to do that to me, I don't think I could have been as calm. The moment they went in my backyard and started taking over the yard, I would have shot them without hesitation. You should definatly call Animal Control the next time they are out. You have more than enough reason to do so. They should have been called long ago! (you guys are just so nice!!!)
Scott and I got into a huge discussion the other day about dogs and how people really need to take care of their responsibilities better. I'm with you on this 100%. And as Mark said, I'd call animal control too - it's too bad we don't have one of those out here in Fort Duchesne..
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