Neighbor's Animals

I live on 18 wooded acres in the Colorado mountains. Our house is the first house of 5 on a little dirt road. After losing a chicken to a bobcat in broad daylight, I purchased an Anatolian Shepherd puppy, figuring I would have a livestock guardian and family protector. When my dog was around a year of age he became an escape artist and a truant, running off up the road to our nearest neighbor's house (about 1/4 mile away) to play with their dog and eat out of the dog's always available dog dish. One day I was cleaning out the garage and had failed to properly latch the door between the house and the garage. My dog made a run for it. I went inside and gathered up his leash and started trecking up the road towards my neighbor's house. It turns out that a second neighbor was driving up the road and I guess my dog started chasing his car. When neighbor #2 tried to stop his car and check on his well-house (right on the property line of neighbor 1 and neigbor 2), my dog wouldn't let him out of the car, barking, snarling, showing teeth. I've made it up road to neighbor #1's house calling my dog and went to knock on neighbor #1's door, unaware of the drama taking place another 1/4 mile up the road. I went home and found my dog waiting at the door and an angry message waiting on my answering machine from neighbor #2. I am so very, very grateful that my neighbor told me what my dog had done rather than hurting my dog or not telling me what happened and thinking to themselves that if it ever happened again they'd kill him. It was a wake up call and turned what I thought was an annoyance (having to treck up the road every week or so to capture my truant teen-ager) to serious life threatening issue. I fixed the latch on the garage door and invested serious time into dog training and serious money into a big outdoor run. I stopped my daily dog walks up the road, instead taking my dogs out to the National Forest to different trails on different days, thinking that my Anatolian Shepherd was confused by our daily patrolling of the neighborhood and thought the entire road was his to protect. My dog is now 3 years old and I can honestly say that neigher neighbor #1 nor neighbor #2 have ever had reason to complain about his behavior.

So, I am grateful that my neighbor confronted me about my dog rather than took matters into his own hands. If I had let the behavior continue, then it would have been a different story, but I hope you'd give your neighbor, and his dog a chance to make things right before taking action.

animals1981 said:

its a scary situation killing someone elses pet they consider family it can turn someone into a dangerous rage, specially those people who might not have anyone else. For those who are protecting animals you care for I understand the situation. For those who just are protecting livestock maybe you can take the dog back record pictures and then demand your money. Laws are kinda harsh here if your dog gets caught molesting animals animal control will demand you compensate. I got in trouble while my dog was on leash and defended herself from a wolf hound who attacked her. Because of the damage my dog was able to do in such a short time I had a mark put on her but she was not deemed dangerous. And that was me following all rules walking on leash and another dog targeting her who is bigger! I can't imagine what would happen if she was breaking rules running down animals. Not that it would happen since she lives with parrots, toucans, and pretty much every other bird species.

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The thing is, that livestock isn't "just" livestock. It's likely someone's livelihood. A source of income or food. A dog is a companion animal, generally not something someone is raising to make a living.

Hummingbird Hollow said:

I hope you'd give your neighbor, and his dog a chance to make things right before taking action.

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I think that most people are willing to give a dog a chance or two - especially when they know the owner is making an effort to keep them home. It's the free roaming repeat offenders that are the problem. If my neighbor's dog repeatedly came over here, especially after talking to the neighbors, and harassed my animals, you bet it wouldn't go back home again! (Beautiful dog you've got there, by the way.)

Hummingbird Hollow said:

....It turns out that a second neighbor was driving up the road and I guess my dog started chasing his car. When neighbor #2 tried to stop his car and check on his well-house (right on the property line of neighbor 1 and neigbor 2), my dog wouldn't let him out of the car, barking, snarling, showing teeth. .... I am so very, very grateful that my neighbor told me what my dog had done rather than hurting my dog or not telling me what happened and thinking to themselves that if it ever happened again they'd kill him. It was a wake up call and turned what I thought was an annoyance (having to treck up the road every week or so to capture my truant teen-ager) to serious life threatening issue. .......
So, I am grateful that my neighbor confronted me about my dog rather than took matters into his own hands. If I had let the behavior continue, then it would have been a different story, but I hope you'd give your neighbor, and his dog a chance to make things right before taking action.

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I must say with the behavior your dog exhibited that day, you ARE very lucky that your dog is still alive. Probably, that is because the neighbor knew whose dog it was.

When we encounter a dog roaming around here, we rarely know where it belongs or if it even belongs to anyone. Folks seem to think that putting a collar on a dog is the extent of their responsibility as an "owner" (no tags, just collar, if that) I consider every dog a stray unless I know who it belongs to for certain and I really only know two dogs in this neighborhood, the Blue Heeler/Aussie mix next door that we have a history with and a fat little Boston Terrier across the road that seems to be corralled better these days. Any dog snarling at us on our land gets dropped on the spot if we have a firearm on us. Yes, I'd say you are quite lucky to still have that handsome dog with you today.

Around here, 99% of all roaming dogs are either dumpees or they are just allowed to roam, not escapees from frustrated owners trying to keep them at home. Those are the rare exception. Most don't get into the perimeter fence, but I swear, they seem to have "gate radar" and when the driveway gate must be open for an expected delivery, any dog in the area seems to find it.

speckledhen said:

I must say with the behavior your dog exhibited that day, you ARE very lucky that your dog is still alive. Probably, that is because the neighbor knew whose dog it was.

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I think many dog owners fail to take into consideration how strong the inbred instincts are in some dog breed. Herding dogs want something to herd, hunting dogs want something to hunt, and without proper release and proper training those instincts can be dangerious, especially the more primitive guardian dogs like Anatolian Shepherds. Their job is to guard and they will put their lives in danger in order to do their jobs. Unfortunately, at around 10 - 12 months the guardian instinct seems to come in full throttle without the the tempering of maturity and experience. Add to that a dash of rebelious teenager and you have a major issue on your hands. If you look at the Anatolian Shepherd rescue sites (or lots of other rescue sites for that matter) you see most of the dogs are between 8 and 18 months. I don't know what Aslan would have done if my neighbor had insisted on getting out of the car, perhaps continued the visual and verbal threat, perhaps escalated to physical. I'm glad he didn't test it, but I'm sure Aslan just thought he was doing his job. It was my job to make sure that he knew exactly what that job was and I failed up to that point. I've tried to make good since.

Here's my handsome boy in his night job, guarding the bedroom. He spends almost all night with his head resting on the windowledge keeping an eye on whatever is going on outside.

Aslan at Bedtime:

Alsan at midnight

Aslan at dawn:

It doesn't matter what time of the night I wake up, he's on duty.

They are a strong breed, certainly, and need an owner with a strong presence and a good understanding of how to train them. I'm glad things are working out better with him now.

What if...

This happened around here this summer actually. We don't actually have neighbors per say closest is more than 1/4 mile away.

My farm is in a block of 6 that all have 100 acres or so. I have chickens and so do my closest neighbors. There's a lady that lives down the road aways that just lets her dog run. My birds are always locked up early morning, good thing too because this summer when I got up for coffee this dog would cruise by my coop every morning. He never bothered them when they were out but always checked on them early. Didn't matter if I yelled at him or his owner every morning he was there.

The nice folks down the street started loosing birds, a rooster here, 2 hens there and the leading suspect was the dog. I was on the other side of my farm and found one of their hens standing in the bushes beat up but alive. When I brought her home my neighbor was very upset because someone stopped and said they say the dog carrying the bird up the road! She said they had told the dogs owner multiple times and had lost over 10 birds.

Never saw the dog again after that day. He was just gone. 2 weeks later the owner comes and asks if I've seen him because he hasn't returned home.

Moral of the story, if I had to deal with that the dog would just disappear. There would be no conversation or anything else with its owner. Simple, nope haven't seen him sorry.

Same goes for cats, we get lots of drop offs, we even found a 8 week old kitten in my garage last February it was 4° outside at the time. We kept the kitten and she's doing great but the rest are not welcome and are pretty much shot on sight. Again they are not people's pets or the neighbor kids cat. They are wild and mean as hell, they also love chicken. Never had anyone come looking for a lost cat.