Oh! And I assume you understand that what your husband “plans” is a murder.
[QUOTE=light strand]
I don’t know how far she wanders, but I do know that the biggest problem is that her mother thinks that the neighborhood is a community babysitter, her family are recent Eastern European immigrants, and “that’s the way it is at home”.
[/QUOTE]
That might be true. That’s also basically how it worked where I was brought up, with the “it takes a village to raise a kid” concept. People would keep a eye on other people’s kids,and wouldn’t hesitate to chastize them, either. Actually, I liked (and would still like) it that way.
I don’t like much the “everyone (and his dog) retranched behind his fence” way of life, as you can tell.
[QUOTE=Miller]
If it’s in circumstance where you’d have shot the person anyway (such as a home invasion burglary) I don’t think it’s too objectionable.
[/QUOTE]
Apparently, she was refering to an already incapacited (wounded) burglar, and mentionned her husband would shot the burglar in order to prevent his dog from being put down, not to protect the people living here.
[QUOTE=MaddyStrut]
. At some point, you have to say that the kid went above and beyond what is reasonable and something bad happened. Yeah, I’d think my dogs wouldn’t bite in that situation, but there’s no guarantee. I do the best I can as I think the OP did.
[/QUOTE]
I think “something bad happened” seems to sum up quite well the whole situation.
any chance you can consolodate responses? jus’ askin’
[QUOTE=clairobscur]
That might be true. That’s also basically how it worked where I was brought up, with the “it takes a village to raise a kid” concept. People would keep a eye on other people’s kids,and wouldn’t hesitate to chastize them, either. Actually, I liked (and would still like) it that way.
I don’t like much the “everyone (and his dog) retranched behind his fence” way of life, as you can tell.
[/QUOTE]
Well, IME (having grown up in the NW suburbs of Chicago and now living in the suburbs of Dallas), while some (IMO) neglectful parents can and do in fact, expect the “village” to watch over their children when they can’t be bothered to, god forbid you try and chastize them for doing wrong, because that parent will bawl you out for DARING to admonish little Britney or Dakota.
The thing about the “village” raising the children is great, IF all the people within that village acknowledge and in fact, welcome the opportunity.
Yeah; wouldn’t “chastizing” include telling the kid “Stay out of our house if you’re not invited and especially if we’re not home”?
[QUOTE=Rilchiam]
Yeah; wouldn’t “chastizing” include telling the kid “Stay out of our house if you’re not invited and especially if we’re not home”?
[/QUOTE]
Pfft, I got yelled at by one real piece of work in our neighborhood when I yelled at her kid for using another neighbor’s SUV as a basketball backboard. 55k dollar and change SUV, 4 VERY noticeable and sizeable dents in it from the ball, and she bawled me out and cosseted her child as she hustled him off, never once telling him what he did was wrong. All she told him was “stay away from that mean bitch”.
Of course, the yelling I did was nothing compared to the owner of the SUV when he found out…and I was the one who had to tell him. The brat’s mother certainly didn’t even bother trying to figure out who the SUV belonged to.
[QUOTE=wring]
any chance you can consolodate responses? jus’ askin’
[/QUOTE]
Nah, it’s the Pit. Just tell him he’s a maroon. 
Oh, and to Milli, yours was just the closest post to end of the thread. Nothing personal. It just struck as odd, Pit or not, that so many posters were discussing their opinions of civil or perhaps even criminal liability, and hardly anyone was bothering with any facts that could have been found, knowing the OP’s location.
Pit or not, sometimes opinions just don’t mean much. Especially since the thread was discussing an issue that could have serious legal implications.
[QUOTE=wring]
any chance you can consolodate responses? jus’ askin’
[/QUOTE]
Looking at how long I’ve been posting without changing my ways, I would say the chance is quite slim…
[QUOTE=Cerri]
Pfft, I got yelled at by one real piece of work in our neighborhood when I yelled at her kid for using another neighbor’s SUV as a basketball backboard. 55k dollar and change SUV, 4 VERY noticeable and sizeable dents in it from the ball, and she bawled me out and cosseted her child as she hustled him off, never once telling him what he did was wrong. All she told him was “stay away from that mean bitch”.
[/QUOTE]
:eek: :smack: 
Anyway, that’s what I was getting at. “To raise a child” is not a bad idea; the problem is the many, many people who translate it as “to spoil a child.”
[QUOTE=Rilchiam]
:eek: :smack:
Anyway, that’s what I was getting at. “To raise a child” is not a bad idea; the problem is the many, many people who translate it as “to spoil a child.”
[/QUOTE]
To avoid spoiling a child, make sure you ‘burp’ the lid and refrigerate right away. :dubious:
[QUOTE=splatterpunk]
Which concepts?
The concepts described by you, or those described by CanvasShoes?
I must confess that I am woefully ignorant in matters of “bailing” animals out of “jail.”
[/QUOTE]
I guess there is a first time for everything, but I’m glad to meet you splatterplunk, I’ve never met anyone without imagination before.
At any rate, as I explained in my subsequent post to you, no of COURSE I didn’t mean actual jail. It was just a figurative, taking poetic license and being silly way to put it.
You can’t really have thought that I thought a dog would be taken to actual jail and had to have been literally bailed out can you? You can’t really have thought that somewhere, somehow someone’s dog was actually put in a JAILjail can you??
How bizarre. :rolleyes:
[QUOTE=clairobscur]
Sorry, but if your property isn’t child-proof, it’s your responsability to make it dog-proof. You can’t control the behavior of kids, nor the behavior of dogs. So, it’s your duty to make sure that both can’t confront each other. Kids explore and dogs bite explorers. There shouldn’t have been a hole in your fence. The confort of your dogs is a way lower priority than the safety of kids.
Not that I condemn everybody who ever put his dog in a situation where it could possibly bite someone, but ultimately it’s the dog’s owner responsbility if something bad happens.
[/QUOTE]
IANAL, but the unfortunate thing is, that legally, I believe that the above statements are probably true.
Ethically however, I disagree completely. And it’s not that I think that the parent of that child needs to follow her around watching her every second, but if the child has already PROVEN to be unreliable regarding not respecting others’ property, she is falling down in her parental duties by not keeping a closer eye on her.
Just because the dog owner unfortunately has the ultimate legal responsibility should NOT let the parent off the hook.
[QUOTE=Rhiannon8404]
IMO, as a parent and as a dog owner, I find the fault to lie totally with the child’s parents.
I don’t let my 7 year old roam the neighborhood on his own and he’s not even “special needs”.
[/QUOTE]
THANK you!
Exactly.
Unfortunately, while the fault for the incident lies firmly with the parents, it seems (according to posters who seem to know the law) that the legal responsibility is light strand’s.
[QUOTE=Go You Big Red Fire Engine]
Did I say that? If it was as easy to instruct Down’s kids as some people seem to be suggesting (It must be bad parenting that she doesn’t know boundaries!),.
[/QUOTE]
No…it’s bad parenting that she isn’t being watched closely enough to assist her in keeping those boundaries by way of seeing her BEFORE she wanders into someone else’s house.
Sheesh, as someone else said, my kids were normal, and I didn’t just let them wander around the neighborhood when they were 7 years old. It takes about a half a second for some pervert to grab a kid and pull them into their car.
Dog bites should be the least of this woman’s worries.
[QUOTE=clairobscur]
So, you’d have a man killed rather than a dog? And you’re making comments about what’s wrong or right???
Someone asked whether I disliked pets. What I dislike is this kind of mindset amongst some pet owners, putting their pet’s comfort above human safety and their pet’s safety above human life.
Actually, it’s not just “dislike”. It’s “completely, utterly despise”.
[/QUOTE]
Come on, she didn’t say they planned to kill the intruder, just shoot him. Dogs usually bite on the arms and legs so they’d most likely just be shooting the guy in the extremities.
It seems like having dogs doesn’t even act as a deterrent to crooks anymore since they know they can break into your home and if your dog bites them and they end up getting caught they can still sue you for more than they could have stolen, and they can get away with it!
Another thing, people often say they will do a certain thing if this or that ever happens - it doesn’t mean they will really do it if it comes right down to it. I’d like to think that I would beat the crap out of an intruder with my baseball bat, I probably wouldn’t but it actually makes me feel better to think that I would.
[QUOTE=Guinastasia]
Oh bullshit. Being understanding doesn’t mean I can’t say that this little girl’s parents (NOT your’s, btw, since I know nothing about your situation) have failed if their daughter is constantly wandering uninvited into people’s houses like this. According to the OP, this has happened more than once. You don’t think the parent should be a bit more concerned that her daughter is doing this?
[/QUOTE]
From the sounds of it, it doesn’t sound like light strand bothered to tell the parents that she didn’t like the kid going into their yard/home. Does the mother know that her daughter was found in other people’s houses and that they didn’t appreciate it? It doesn’t seem to me that this mother understands the legal boundaries, and light strand hasn’t bothered to properly set up personal boundaries. Also, light strand has mentioned that the mother thinks that the neighbourhood is some sort of community, has light strand bothered to dispute this? Otherwise, what else should she(the mother) believe?
If someone punches you in the arm, and you don’t complain, they have no reason to believe you don’t like being punched in the arm, now do they?
Way to miss the point. IMHO, having an older than teen daughter that has still not become independent of you is reckless parenting, YMDV.
[QUOTE=GLWasteful]
And to extrapolate all the way from “retarded child” to “little or no job” is pretty damned forward of you, doncha think? And if the house is a rental, too damned bad. This mother needs to stay on top of where her daughter (who has wandered into the OP’s house, ferchrissakes) is.
[/QUOTE]
I wouldn’t say it was pretty damned forward. My sister is a pretty big expense on my family. The families with retarded children I have met seemed to be in the lower monetary brackets. Having a retarded child generally means that one parent cannot work, and there are often plenty of medical bills (accidents, physio, congenital defects, developmental defects…).
That and they sound poor, but they might just like owning several litters of shih tzus.
As you are a parent of a Down kid, I consider your reply to this thread quite useful, even though our opinions slightly differ. Thank you for bothering to reply.
So my question is, light strand, did you make it perfectly clear with the lady when you found her child in your home and yard that you did not want her there under any circumstances? Did you inform her that, no, the neighbourhood isn’t her child’s playground?
[QUOTE=CanvasShoes]
No…it’s bad parenting that she isn’t being watched closely enough to assist her in keeping those boundaries by way of seeing her BEFORE she wanders into someone else’s house.
Sheesh, as someone else said, my kids were normal, and I didn’t just let them wander around the neighborhood when they were 7 years old. It takes about a half a second for some pervert to grab a kid and pull them into their car.
Dog bites should be the least of this woman’s worries.
[/QUOTE]
This is my thought, too. A child who is this unsupervised, and this naive, is in great danger, and not from just dogs. There’s bound to be traffic around the street, and even if it’s normally quite slow, no street is completely safe from people who are cruising along, not paying attention. There are human predators. There are all sorts of unsafe situations. The neighborhood is not childproofed, and the girl’s mother needs to realize this, and to realize that SHE is responsible for her daughter’s safety. Parenting isn’t easy, and I imagine that it’s even harder when the child is mentally disabled, but nothing will change the fact that the mother is the person who is primarily in charge of her daughter’s safety, and she can’t expect the whole world to look after her daughter.
[QUOTE=Arnold Winkelried]
If you were only making a witty one-liner, then I will throw in a LOL.
[/QUOTE]
Howdy Arnold, I’ll take that LOL, I most certainly meant it as a bit of humour. Hey, as a 6 year old (or thereabouts) I distinctly remember standing on the roof of our house with a cape, planning to prove to my brother that Batman can fly. How I go there is still a bit fuzzy.