Grandma and Kujo

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I came home to an awful message on my machine two days ago. My grandmother was sobbing into the phone, asking me to come pick her up and drive her to the hospital.

After I finished havng my heart attack, I called my mother. She calmed me down, said not to worry that I couldn’t reach Grandma on the phone; she had already been taken to the hospital, and she was fine. Mom said that while Grandma was walking her dog in her yard, the neighbor’s Saint Bernard had attacked. Her dog was leashed, and in the midst of the fight, my grandmother’s hand was broken.

My grandfather, who was thirty miles away at the time, called the neighbors, and roundly bitched them out. They offered to drive Grandma to the hospital, and grandpa met up with them there. My grandmother was fitted with a cast, and the doctor predicted that she would need surgery to fix her hand properly.

I was enraged. I called a couple other people in the neighborhood, and they all reported trouble with the dog. One woman said that her boyfriend was mauled by this animal, and is afraid to get out of his car if he sees the dog lurking nearby.

Tonight, I called to check on grandma, and I asked her if the neighbors had been keeping the dog tied up. “No,” she replied, “actually, he’s in my front yard right now.”

I tried to convince her to call the animal control people, but she doesn’t want to cause “bad will” between her neighbors. I told her to carry a BB gun, or a small baseball bat for protection, but she said that the dog specializes in stealth attacks, and she never sees him until the last moment, anyway, and that a weapon would do no good.

Dark thoughts are passing through my mind. I am a member of PETA, but I have seriously considered “taking care” of him myself. This dog could kill somebody, but the neighbors have a “born free” attitude towards their pets.

What can I do? Nothing. I feel so frustrated, and my poor grandmother is a prisoner in her own house, and, in my opinion, a prisoner of her outdated notions of being “neighborly.” She’s not even going to ask them to pay her medical bills!

So, I’m frustrated, and I’m just venting. I’m not really asking you guys for possible solutions, just getting this off of my chest.

2

Lissa,
I’d be pissed off too. Maybe some of the other neighbors would be willing to file complaints if Grandma won’t.

Or you might ask her what happens if the dog attacks a child, a child would have no chance against a dog that big.

At the very least someone should report the owners to the SPCA or the local equivalent for neglecting the animal by allowing it to run loose , they are allowing the dog to be in danger of being run over by a car !

I know dogs get out sometimes, my poodle will escape if she gets the chance. But we always go get her when she does that.

Some people shouldn’t have pets ! aaarrrggghhh

Ayesha - Lioness

There are two solutions to every problem : the wrong one, and mine
(Thomas A. Edison)

3

That is such bullshit that she has to deal with that situation. If I were you, I would call the local animal control officer and the local police and relay the same story that you told here. They will likely pay these assholes a visit and explain what happens to dogs that run loose and bite.
Bearing in mind that I live in the country, and am a huge dog lover, if all else failed I would likely take care of the animal myself. I hope I don’t get flamed for that, but when it comes down to some asshole with a biting St. Bernard and my grandma, grandma is gonna live a whole lot longer.
Sheesh…that stuff makes me friggin’ sick.

Work a little bit harder on improving your
low self esteem, you stupid freak!
Click here for some GOOD news for a change Zettecity

4

Wow what a terrible story! By all means call the animal control people. Leave an anonymous tip if you feel so inclined–they will investigate it.

At the risk of sounding like I don’t care about grandma–which isn’t the case–how did grandma’s dog fare?

–
“Meat flaps, yellow!” - DrainBead, naked co-ed Twister chat
O p a l C a t
www.opalcat.com

5

This is one of the few things that really gets me upset.

Our next door neighbor had a dog that used to show up in our yard and get in fights with our dogs. After we had to take Pepper in to the vet for stitches, Dad called him and told him to keep “Fido” in his own yard.

Mr. Uncaring Dog Owner didn’t do squat. So the next time his dog came over, Dad shot it in the ass with a BB gun.

It bit him twice.

One trip to the hospital and a rabies test later, our neighbor STILL wouldn’t do anything to contain his dog. So the next time it showed up in our yard, I shot it with Dad’s hunting pistol.

And guess what happened? Our neighbor called that night and started screaming at me for shooting his dog, threatening to call the police, and acting like “Fido” was a priceless purebred blue-ribbon dog show winner instead of a filthy ragged mutt he probably fed and ignored. I pointed out that the dog had attacked our dogs several times, we had already called animal control, and Dad had the stitches to prove his dog was a menace.

The asshole threatened to come over and shoot OUR dogs.

“If I see you come over here with a gun,” I said, “I’ll shoot you.” Probably not the smartest thing to say, but I wasn’t about to have him show up with a rifle. I hung up on him and called the police.

People like that shouldn’t be allowed to own dogs.
– Sylence

And now, for my next trick, I will talk in spooky half-references.

6

Yeah you gotta call Animal Control. You can leave an anonymous tip. If Animal Control where you live is anything like where I live though, it may take a while for anything to be done. It isn’t because AC is incompetant or anything, they are just seriously understaffed and they get a million calls a day. We work very closely with AC at my hospital, and I feel really sorry for the officers. They have an awful job. But you can’t let that dog have the run of the area. Make the call.

Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.–Coleridge

7

I could have sworn that it was a law that you have to report dog bites. Maybe I’m wrong.

What a terrible story! I hope your grandmother gets better soon. Please give her a big ol’ hug for me.

I have a dog bite story too. This happened a couple of weeks ago. I shared it with the corgi list that I belong to, caught some flack over it, didn’t want more flack and decided not to share it with the SDMB. Anyway, I can handle it now, so here’s what I shared with them on November 6th, the day after the attack.

First let me say that everyone is okay. No permanent damage, no hospital or vet visits.

Crease (13 month-old Cardigan Welsh corgi) and I love to go to a large field that belongs to a middle school about 1/2 mile from our house. I let her off of her leash and throw a ball for her - it’s great exercise and she’s so much better behaved when she gets a good session in.

We live in a townhouse community with a nice paved path through it. Last night at 5:15 PM we were walking on this path towards the field. Crease was on her leash. Whenever we walk the path in that direction, we pass a house where a sheltie cross lives. “Buster” weighs about 45 pounds and is usually hooked up to the outside of his house with a 20-foot
leash. Crease has seen him enough times that she doesn’t respond to his barking and lunging anymore. The closest we get to him is about 30 feet away, as we’re passing on the path.

Last night I made a mistake. Instead of staying on the path, I took a short cut across the very edge of the yard where Buster was lunging and barking. I think he thought that Crease and I were invading his property. (This is a townhouse community, so no one
has their own yard - legally, all yards belong to everyone.) We were still
about 30 feet away from him - far enough away that I thought it would be the same as walking on the path. Wrong. Buster squirmed
out of his collar and charged us. I remembered that one of my neighbors
said that Buster had bitten her Lab, so I thought that he would only try to get Crease. I immediately picked her up and Buster
jumped around us, snapping at Crease. Then he connected. I could feel his teeth through my t-shirt, sweatshirt and light canvas jacket.

I have a 3-inch bruise just above my elbow. After he bit me his owner came running out of her house. She grabbed Buster and asked
if we were okay. I told her that I thought Crease was okay but that he had bitten me on my arm and I wasn’t sure if he got through
to my skin. She looked at my sleeve, said she couldn’t see anything; then she apologized, saying she had the flu.

I probably should have gone home right then, but I was kinda freaked out and sure that Crease really needed some exercise now. I took her over to the field and threw the ball for her for a half hour or so. When we returned home I went over to our association vice president’s house to tell him about what happened. Steve and his wife Jackie have an English springer spaniel and a Lab, so they’re dog lovers too. Steve wasn’t home but Jackie recommended that I file a police report. This wasn’t the first story she’d heard about Buster attacking, but the first time she’d heard that he attacked a person.

I went home, called the police and reported the incident. Within a half hour an officer came to the house to get my statement. He
said that since Buster hadn’t broken the skin, he wouldn’t be impounded. He said that he’d go over right after speaking with me, talk to Buster’s owner and write her a ticket if he wasn’t licensed or vaccinated (I have no idea whether he is or not). The police officer said that the incident would be on file and if there were any other problems
it would help to force the owner to do something. In my case, he could only suggest courses of action.

At the time of the incident, I felt bad about reporting Buster. Now I’m glad I did. His house is right next to the playground. What if a kid accidentally invaded his space?

It also turns out that our community has a rule about dogs. They may not be left unattended outside. I hope that the police interrupting her Friday evening will stop her from leaving Buster outside again.

We’ll see.

It is much easier to see ourselves as better than or even worse than, rather than accepting that we simply are. - John “The Penguin” Bingham

8

Call Animal Control now before someone gets seriously hurt.

With all due respect to Sylence’s desire to protect Pepper, I think taking the law into your own hands (especially with a gun) is just asking for trouble.

A perfect example of that is where a grandfather in the greater L.A. area (this year: 1999) lost his head about kids stealing Halloween decorations from his front yard, walked out of his house with a gun and ended up killing a prankster teenager in a car.

La franchise ne consiste pas à dire tout ce que l’on pense, mais à penser tout ce que l’on dit.
H. de Livry

9

Choose.

Somebody else’s dog VS. your Grandmother

Kill the mutt.

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10

Grandma’s dog is fine, Opal. In fact, he chased the Evil Dog away, and returned to my grandmother, and led her to the house.

I went over there today, and she asked me to take her dog outside. The neighbors dog is practically stalking her, watching her house from the top of the hill. When he saw her start out with her dog this morning, he started down the hill after her. She ran back to the house and slammed the door. I took a baseball bat out there with me, and silently dared him to try to attack * me *. But evidently, my body language was telling him that I was loaded for bear, and unafraid, so he stayed back.

She asked me not to report it to the animal authorites beacuse “they’ll know it came from me.” They called this morning, and offered to pick up the costs of her medical treatment, so she’s unwilling to “antagonize” them.

I’m trying to find one of those shocker things, and right now, she’s carrying a pistol-style pellet gun whenever she goes outside, but, as I told her, it doesn’t protect the other neighbors, or their children. I’m contacting them, and asking them to call the proper authortes, and one of the ladies I spoke to said that they would call in the morning.

I’ll keep you guys posted.