It seems you have the solution right there. Assuming there is a side door out of your (or one of your neighbor’s garage) then let the dog follow you into the garage, shut garage door, go through side door locking the dog in and call animal control.
I pit irresponsible dog owners who can't be bothered to keep their dogs on a leash or in their yard.
Yep, that’s a good solution too. A few bailouts from the pound might convince these people to keep the dog home.
We had a dog come onto our property a few years ago and attack one of our hens. My husband was able to go up to it and put a leash on it (admittedly, if it were aggressive, this would not have worked). We called animal control and off he went - bubye! Turns out it belonged to a neighbor (no name tag) - who got it from somewhere, but didn’t want to pay for the license or shots. They didn’t pay to get the dog out of the pound either - I’d guess we truncated what was going to be a long line of irresponsible dog-owner events by making that one call.
Anyway - the animal control officer did say he couldn’t do anything without being able to get the dog actually on our property (we knew this from a previous incident with a different neighbor’s dog). So, yeah - if you can figure a way to get the dog to remain on your property - that would be the easiest way to get everyone to pay attention.
And here’s another point. For those with very well mannered, well trained and “he would never bite” dogs- dogs are still hardwired with certain behaviors. If a squirrel runs across the street in front of your dog, your dog WILL chase it into traffic.
I have seen this* happen three times in the last year on my daily walk, and in two cases the dog made it out OK.
So I dont care how “well mannered, well trained” your* special* dog is, you are risking his life by doing this. That’s what your back yard or dog parks are for.
- not always a squirrel, but…
Also we have a local park up in the hills. There are many ground squirrels (which can carry the Black Plague with their fleas) and rattlesnakes. This makes it super dangerous to bring your dog into the park. But despite many signs “NO DOGS ALLOWED IN PARK” many idiots still do.
My elderly parents had a similar problem with an idiot dog-owning neighbor. Dad became fed up with Mom being afraid to go in the yard due to aggressive behavior from the animal (Pit-ish, not sure of actual breed).
When one of them tripped trying to get away from it, Dad simply called his lawyer and filed a substantial lawsuit. I believe he asked for punitive damages as well as demanding complete funding of an 6-foot fence surrounding their (my parent’s) property to protect them from the dog. IIRC, he also insisted they pay for automatic auto and people gates since they were elderly and couldn’t easily open such things daily. The cost of this was huge, and when the lawsuit got to the neighbor’s insurance company (damages, etc. due to vicious pit bull), hilarity ensued.
Turns out insurance companies aren’t keen on accepting liability for a dangerous animal and will drop* you like a hot-potato if they end up facing an actual lawsuit. Shit-for-brains not only had to get rid of the dog, he got substantially higher premiums due to being cancelled. (Dad withdrew the suit after the dog was gone)
All-in-all it was a good outcome. No more dangerous dog, and the idiot owner gets to spend many years paying substantially higher premiums as part of his lesson in dog-ownership. Win-win 
*I don’t know if this is typical, but it happened in this case.
Calgary’s pet “dogs” are a bit different than those in Ontairo.
When the dog is out, capture it and take it to the pound. If the neighbors ask if you know where the dog is, say you do not. If they bother to get it out of the pound, and it’s out again afterwards, do it again. And again. And again, until they quit letting the dog out. But it’s more likely the first incident will end your problem.
(And if they don’t bother to get it out, don’t fret. I’m sure a standard poodle will adopted quickly)
I don’t know. My guess is lack of enforcement of the leash laws, so no consequences, so people just keep on letting their dogs do as they please. Just like the people in the OP - no consequences, no changes.
A few photos from this summer:
Two dogs off-leash in the no dogs zone.
Dog off-leash in the no dogs allowed playground.
Off-leash dog on the on-leash multi-use path.
Huge dog and small kids in the off-leash, but still under control area. If those kids could control that dog, I’ll eat my hat.
Dog owner keeping a careful eye on his dog by sitting with his back to him.
Dog off-leash in no dogs allowed playground.
Dog taking himself for a walk - I don’t even know where the owner was.
(Muffin, if we had an off-leash honey badger problem here, I’d NEVER go outside!)
I call animal control about the off-leash dogs all the time; when they show up three hours later, I’m pretty sure the dog I called about is long gone. So very, very effective. The way I figure it, if I’m calling a couple of times a week, those complaint calls are all getting registered, and sooner or later, someone, somewhere, is going to notice that there’s a problem, especially since I doubt my calls are the only ones.
Last week a woman with an unleashed dog appeared at my door demanding to know who owned the unleashed dog that was on the road. (No it was not my dog, and yes, to get her and her unleashed dog to leave I had to treaten twice to call the police to have her charged for trespassing.)
So there’s a large dog that barks in an unfriendly way and whose other objectionable activities have been chasing cars and taking random dumps on other people’s property.
Aside from things like pepper spray, a 3-iron or baseball bat can be an effective deterrent.
Yes.
Shooting at a dog in your driveway, on a suburban cul-de-sac where an autistic child rides a bike in circles for hours daily, does not sound like responsible gun handling to me.
Get the authorities to take care of it.
Yeah, I think you keep missing the part where I mention that I call animal control, heck I called the police, and they send out animal control. Animal control gets there after about an hour or so and they talk to the dog owner. Didn’t change a damn thing.
There aren’t any kids on the street if the dog is out and about but lets just assume for the sake of argument that your just being silly with your concerns about a ricochet killing an autistic kid on a bicycle.
I don’t know if your need to equate the use of a gun in self defense to shooting autistic children comes from an antipathy to firearms or too much empathy for animals and not enough for people but in the end, if it was you and your kid cornered in a garage, you’d shoot the damn dog too. You wouldn’t take the chance that pepper spray isn’t just going to piss off the dog or that you have to get close enough to use a bat or 3 iron. You act like this is some sort of turn based game where I can react to what the dog does in a timely manner. If the dog rushed me, I would have a couple of shots with a gun, I would only get one swing with a bat.
ANYHOO…, I still haven’t seen the dog off leash after my neighbor (incidentally the father of the autistic child) threatened to shoot it. Soooo, I’m thinking threatening to shoot the dog worked pretty well.
I am always surprised when you talk about all these dogs off leash because I think we live pretty close to each other and I’ve never seen this problem like you have. But, your pictures are pretty good proof! I do have a question though - sometimes you talk about dogs on the pathway IN off-leash areas. Are you sure dogs aren’t allowed on the pathway IN off-leash areas? This doesn’t really make sense to me.
And I agree about the lack of enforcement in Calgary. We have our own dog and foster dogs, so are often in parks and off-leash areas. We have NEVER, in our ten years of having a dog, seen a bylaw officer in any of the parks (though one did come to our house once - totally our fault).
What the hell is wrong with people that they’d let their dogs run around unleashed? Even the most well-behaved dog could fly off the handle if spooked or provoked. I wouldn’t dream of letting my two beagles run around off their leashes. They’re both pretty friendly but they’re…you know, beagles. 
How life has changed. Forty years ago in my neighborhood everyone with a friendly dog let them run loose. They’d play with each other and the neighborhood kids. Gangs of kids and dogs would always be running around together. The kids knew the dogs by name. (I don’t recall any nasty dogs. If some were, they weren’t loose.
Since the advent of SUVs, letting an animal out loose has become a risky business. People drive so much faster when riding high. Parents now drive kids to their friends’ houses instead of sending them off walking.
Back in the days when everyone let their dogs run loose, you figured the distribution of dog poop was evened out.
The old feel is totally gone.
All the nostalgia aside, you town animal control officer might provide a solution.
I assume you have spoken about the matter in a friendly manner with your neighbor to no avail.
Sometimes a pail of water thrown on the dog by an auto passenger might cure it (harmlessly) from chasing cars. A standard poodle is a smart dog. A wetting or two might cure it.
My neighbor’s dog got run over and killed by a schoolbus going less than 5mph.
These days the “feel” is from picking up one’s dog’s poop in plastic bags.
The thing about the the dog in this thread is that it is a nuissance and somewhat hostile, as opposed to a friendly neighbourhood dog.
Somebody’s tiny little dog was running round loose this afternoon in my neighborhood. I would be surprised if it was larger than 3 pounds - a dog that tiny could probably be killed with a smaller motorcycle, and it could certainly be killed with my Pontiac.
We were driving around today, and saw one guy walking his big dog down the sidewalk off-leash (he had the leash in his hand, but not on the dog), and two other dogs taking themselves for a walk (no owners in sight) - I don’t know what is going on here. I wouldn’t believe it either if I wasn’t seeing it everywhere I go.
You should have shot it.