[Dailydrool] What To Do About Nasty Neighbors!

[Houndy2 at aol.com]

What a nerve they have!We had some wacko neighbors too once (oh boy were we  
all in the neighborhood glad when they moved away!) and it sure sounds  awful 
that you have several complainers all in a row there.
 
I tried bringing dog treets and reason.It was good to do that with  everybody 
in the neighborhood because I ended up having a few of the neighbors  KNOW US 
and therefor would not "turn us in" when the Nut job family filed their  
reports with Animal Control and the Police! 
 
I tried telling our neighbors in a respectful way that it is our right to  
have our dogs walking. Showed them the poop bags attached to their leads and  
showed how they were QUIET. I invited them over for lattes and served some  good 
food. (like our dogs I have found FUDE to be a grreat motivator! lol)  Being 
reasonable and respectful is sometimes tough to do especially when you are  
dealing with bizarre nut jobs who swear and yell. Maybe is you have a  
neighborhood BBQ or something..a coffee klatch...something friendly they could  learn 
to get along better?
 
Swearing does serve a purpose...usually when we have reached our  LIMITS and 
blow our tops...the swearing is a sort of release right? Well you do  not know 
WHAT is motivating these people! Maybe when they are calmed down you  could 
talk with them or perhaps talk with your neighbors who do love your  Bassets 
and find out what is going on. Sometimes you find out amazing  things about what 
people are really yelling about and understanding them can  help you better 
decide what to do next. 
 
Like somebody said maybe they are worried about THEIR DOGS BEING OUT OF  
CONTROL and it really has not much to do with you or your dogs really. You  have 
every right to walk by whenever and how many times you please. This is  after 
all a free country. Here's One thing I tried and it worked for a neighbor  we 
have now. We are at least on saying "Hi" terms and smiling:
             When  we have to go by our noisy yappy doggie neighbors I just 
got permission to give  em some little treets... talked with them about it 
awhile when we all had  coffees and sweet rolls one weekend morning at our 
house...and  nowadays  over time when they are quiet now they get a handful of broken 
up treets tossed  out in their yard...nowadays they come running up and "sit 
pretty" and are  eagerly waiting the treets that will be tossed as a reward 
for the sitting  pretty and not yapping like maniacs. This took some time...but 
now my  terrier-est neighbors are more livable for their neighbors as well as 
us walkers  by. They need to TRAIN their dogs...maybe you can help them?
 
Maybe you could copy out the DD's people sent to you and ask them to read  
them? OR...just write them a short respectful letter. You do NOT need to bother  
with them though. If they overstep their bounds and yell again then I would 
call  the POLICE. BE SURE that you get a CASE NUMBER. If they do not give you a 
 CASENUMBER then it is not on the record. You need it to be on the record. 
You  need to keep track somewhere on a calendar or something the times and 
dates. You  will need this at your "Arbitration" or education session that the 
Animal  Control and Police will have with you and your neighbors. Be SURE you are 
always  respectful and be sure you always record the times and dates.
 
 You sure do have every right to walk after all its the right thing to  do 
for our hounds! Exercise is a good thing! They ought to be GLAD for your  
walking 3 times a day...when people walk in any neighborhood then EVERYBODY is  
safer. What is wrong with these people I wonder?
 
We had neighbors who tried to get the people in the neighborhood to turn us  
in for barking and howling Hounds! They would call us and say our dogs  were  
barking and we would look around and all our dogs would be snoozing  
away...and some OTHER dogs would  be barking.
 
They would call the police....and the police would come so of course all  the 
dogs would bark at the cop car in the driveway. The cop helped us alot. He  
said we ought to go to "arbitration". So we did.
 
We found out there that in our state we can have our dogs barking and we  can 
make NOISE from 8 AM till dusk or 9 PM I think it was. Each state  should 
have a  noise meter that reads the level of noise and if it is  over a certain 
level and for over 5 or 6 minutes at a time THEN you could be  dragged into 
"Arbitration". In our state they do not even really HAVE this  "meter" to measure 
the noise level. At our meetings with the police and the  Animal Control we 
were so scared that the neighbors might harm our animals  (horses and cats and 
dogs...) and we got just fed up with the complaining  neighbors. We were so 
happy to have the Animal Control people come and do some  EDUCATION of the awful 
neighbors we once had. We had been just about ready to  MOVE..because we could 
not stand the fear that the nut heads would keep  complaining. It does have  
way of driving up your blood pressure. We know  some people who had to spend 
$13 thousand dollars soundproofing their home so  that the dogs barking and 
carrying on when they were not home could be muffled  and made less noisy. We 
didn't have that kind of money and so we were worried  about the whole 
thing...you know when Rescue Dogs come into rescue they often DO  Bark and after 
all...dogs do BARK! lol
 
So...maybe you might try and get your friendly neighbors together and then  
contact your Animal Control and make an appointment for them to come out and  
witness what happens and HELP  YOU. That is their job. You are paying their  
paycheck with your taxes!  They are so often overworked and stressed out  having 
so much to do in each day but there should be an animal control officer  WHO 
will be able to come out and help you. If the nut job neighbors find that  
Animal Control is backed by POLICE and that you have every right to walk your  
dogs on the public street... I bet they will think twice about harassing you  
continually as they have done.
 
We found that the Police and the Animal Control people were really in truly  
a LOT of HELP. Our other neighbors were glad for the fact that we had stood up 
 to the ornery neighbors. We found out that other neighbors were being 
harassed  too (they said that our neighbors across the streets sheep and cows 
SMELLED  badd) I think that if you can keep walking you ought to but you are the 
only one  who can make the decision as to if it is safe or not. Good Luck!
 
Sincerely, Lexa Mom to Hudson and Henry
 
You can't fool all of the people all of the time, but politicians figure  
that once every 4 years is good enough!



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