And in your perfect scenario, is there also an animal control officer assigned to each animal 24/7 as a constant companion ? Because from what I read, the animal is never or won’t be in the same spot by the time they respond. I don’t see how this is doing her any good.
She can be realistic and practical and shoo it away or throw a tennis ball so it will run off after it … or she can remain frozen in place for hours, days or however long it takes. Me, I’d take option #1. My “to do” list is way too long to sit around for hours staring at a lab that hasn’t done anything even remotely threatening. YMMV, and thats your perfect right.
Absolutely not. Rachellelogram may be afraid of dogs, but she needs to first make an attempt to contact the owner. Going straight to animal control is a dick move, IMO.
If she called animal control, it would not be “going straight to animal control.” This has been an ongoing problem, she has been prevented from entering her home. It is a dick move to let your dog roam unattended.
I am a go person, but I don’t expect other people to be.
HAH!!! Yes, the Lab will run away and in a couple of seconds come bounding right back and drop the tennis ball at your feet.
I agree with Munch. I have two labs and know they wouldn’t hurt a sole, but I also understand people being afraid of dogs. The way I would handle it is not at all the way that I would expect someone afraid of dogs to handle. Please try to find the neighbor and/or find someone who is a dog person first. If I lived close I would volunteer in a heartbeat to come over and get the big sweetie into my fenced in yard and keep him until I could find his owner or a new one.
Then she should have called animal control then. She didn’t - I think it’s her responsibility after that point to attempt to contact the owner. If there are instances where she feels threatened by the dog in the future, then she can call animal control.
What an odd response. You said that “(g)oing straight to animal control is a dick move, IMO,” and then when I pointed out that she didn’t go straight to animal control you are arguing that she shouldn’t call animal control because she didn’t go straight to animal control the first time.
Also, delivery peole have refused to get out of their car when this dog is around, so it is not just the OP who feels unsafe because of this dog.
Some suggestions never cease to amaze me. Some dipshit lets his dog constantly roam free, the OP has no earthly idea who owns the damn thing, and you consider calling control to be a dick move? Unbelievable.
I’d probably walk around a lab, but if I had a strong fear of dogs, I wouldn’t think twice about calling animal control every time it got in my way.
+1.
Some Labs could put Houdini to shame when it comes to escapes. I ended up having to give one away a few years ago because absolutely nothing would keep her in the fence. She literally climbed fences (I watched her to see how she was getting out), broke dog runs and chewed through plastic coated braided wire chain. The neighbors new she was harmless and would call to let us know she got out again, but I couldn’t continue to let her get out and roam free. Better to give her away than scrape her off the street.
Sorry, what I meant by “going straight to animal control” is that the very first action she takes (aside from any instance in which she feels physically threatened) should be to contact the owner. She’s had what sounds like quite a lot of time to deal with this situation - how “contact the owner” never factored into it is perplexing. Unless there are “trespassers will be shot on sight” signs, why the hell not knock on a few doors and see if the owner can’t be found?
And even if she HAD tried to contact the owner, her assumption that Animal Control can’t be called “unless we capture it first” is bizarre. Why are people so reluctant to make actual human contact or make a telephone call? So she calls Animal Control, they come out, and the dog’s not there. Say she does that five more times - guess what’s going to happen. Animal Control will likely start patrolling the area. At the very least, they’ll give her some suggestions on an issue that is their entire reason for existence.
Rachel has all sorts of rights here - from being able to call Animal Control to maybe even shooting the dog. And I wouldn’t fault her for exercising any of those rights. But the nice, neighborly thing to do would be to make one iota of effort to contact the owner.
No, I certainly don’t consider calling animal control to be a dick move. But thanks for misreading my post.
The message is clear. I will contact animal control in the future every time this happens. Best to be a squeaky wheel!
I appreciate the rest of your advice, it is good. But even if I change myself, I can’t change our UPS driver or the pizza delivery guy. I also think it’s generally bad to let a dog roam free when it has shown it likes to sit in the middle of a 45 mph highway after dark.
I don’t have tennis balls just lying around. And I’m not going to assume anything about a dog I don’t know. I had a big friendly-looking dog when I was a kid. It bit us, destroyed our house, ate a bunch of toys, and left food and garbage to rot under my bed. Until he chewed through his leash and ran away while my dad was walking him.
There’s a whole middle area you’re excluding here. I browsed the internet in my car for 5 minutes, then went into the house when he scampered off.
Rachellelogram, I’m going to make a suggestion, but it’s more work. Since dogs aren’t supposed to be roaming all over the neighborhood, it’s not something you should be expected to do, but maybe you never considered it.
Find out whose dog it is, approach them and tell them you’re not a dog person, and ask them to introduce you to their dog, so that the dog knows you and so you know it, so that when you see it, you know it’s friendly and can just say “Hi Buster”, pet him and send him on its way. For you, it could be an opportunity to be more comfortable around dogs.
Did someone promise you an animal-free existence? Must every inch of the planet contain only animals with our express permission to exist there?
I realize this is not a wild animal, but someone’s pet, and that this is “your” property, but it’s actually only bothering you, so getting it to leave your area should be sufficient.
I’m really sorry that is the message you took away from this discussion.
I hope you will give just a tiny bit of effort in talking to your neighbors and finding the owner so they will have a chance to remedy the situation without the dog being hauled to the pound and potentially being put to death.
Can you get close enough and friendly enough to attach a note to his collar? Give your name and phone number. If he truly belongs to someone, that owner should be concerned enough to contact you eventually. At least you will know who he belongs to. Next…
When this happens in our neighborhood if I can see tag on the collar I usually just invite the dawg into the garage for a drink of water and call the owner.
If the doggie appears afraid or angry I call animal control. If you aren’t sure of the temperament of your neighbors or are concerned about retaliation then the communication first idea seems good.
However it will also let them know who was the one who possibly called animal control if they aren’t willing to be cooperative. There can be no end to squabbles in this situation so I think you’re wise to get a lot of different suggestions.
Funny story: I was out one evening in the shopping district and saw a German shepherd running across the road. There was a lot of traffic.
So I parked in the nearest parking lot and started to whistle to the dawg. (This is when I discovered that I no longer have that eardrum-breaking whistle I used to have. Dang.)
So I trotted along behind him calling out but he was too busy with doggie business to pay me any heed. We went on that way through several parking lots, me on the phone to animal control and never quite catching him. Finally I saw him across the street standing still by a pick-up truck and sneaked up on him where I discovered that his leash was firmly tied to the bumper.
What the heck? I didn’t see anyone doing that. Was he tied to the right truck or had someone just stopped him and tied him up? A mystery.
I don’t think that’s fair to say. She’s also concerned it’ll get killed on their busy street. Sounds like she absolutely gets that it’s someone’s pet, and doesn’t deserve to be run over because no one bothered to do anything. So yeah, she’d rather it not be in her space AND she doesn’t want it to get killed.
I didn’t misread you. You said calling animal control at this point would be a dick move. That is a ridiculous opinion and shouldn’t be taken at all seriously by the OP.
But she doesn’t know which neighbor is the dog’s owner. And remember, she’s scared of dogs, so she’s probably not eager to examine the tags on its collar.