When Good Neighbors Go Bad

As many of you know, I am a hermit. I prefer it that way. I know a few people on my block and we get together fairly frequently for dinner, movies, drinks, etc. But we aren't all "up in your business". Days can pass without anything more than a text or random comment on a facebook page, or nothing at all. Just the way I like it.

Enter the neighbors across the street. For all I knew they were just like us, hermits who didn't venture out much. I vaguely knew what they looked like - didn't know their names. Didn't really care to. Just so long as they kept up their yard and stayed quiet, that's all I really care about.

Now, these this couple have dogs. I don't know what kind of dogs - some sort of english setter is what I'm guessing. They are pretty dogs. But, they are NOT controlled dogs. We'd heard reports from various folks on the block telling us that one of the dogs is aggressive. But we'd never had any experience with this. That is until recently.

As you know, the spousal unit is quite active. He's always running or biking, or doing some other physical activity that hermits like me think are senseless. The end of April, he was finishing a run when one of the dogs ran out and lunged at him in what we could politely refer to as an aggressive behaviour. If you are a runner or biker, you know that from time to time these things happen. You also probably know how to fend for yourself from said rabid dog. He yelled at it, kicked at it (didn't physically kick it, just made it think he would), etc. Dog went back home.

After his run, he went over and asked the owner to follow the leash laws. To which he was told (rather rudely) they would not. Since then he's had a couple convos about it, and found out that several other neighbors have also asked them to keep a handle on the dogs. I shot of a lengthy letter to my HOA reporting them for breaking ordinances - because you know, that's the passive aggressive type of thing I like to do. Fast forward to earlier this week.

Spousal Unit and Oldest Child are out running - she starts Cross Country conditioning in a few weeks. Don't want her to be too out of shape, so they've started running together in the evenings. This time dog goes after H. Now, I figure the hubs can fend for himself - but have a snarling, barking dog lunge at my child, and you've got problems.

The hubs confronted the neighbors again. Again he was told they wouldn't do anything about the situation. This time the speckled their response with profanity. Yep, for people who have such a pretty house, they obviously have no standard of decency.

So, last night Animal Control was by to take our statements. Another neighbor signed the petition. And at some point soon AC will be serving our lovely neighbors with a ticket. I have no idea how much the ticket will cost, but the AC officer informed me that if the dogs continued to run rampant in the street and jump on or at people they would loose their dogs. I don't want it to come to that. I have my own little diva dog over here that I'd hate to see anything happen to, but hopefully this will show the neighbors that we're serious and they need to get a handle on the situation.

BTW - these neighbors are known to report everyone in the neighborhood for stupid violations of HOA policies i.e. sign in the yard, grass an inch to high, etc. This should be an interesting summer.