Neighbor dogs

[MsChickenMomma]

I have a neighbor down the street who owns two big dogs. Every day for the last three months, she has been letting her dogs loose when she goes to work. These dog have terrorized my goats, chased my cats up trees, and chased my chickens all over the yard.

This afternoon has been really nice, and my chickens were wandering around the yard. Then these two dogs ran up and started chasing them. My chickens all ran into the barn and started freaking out. I'm just lucky that the dogs didn't catch my chickens, or they probably wouldn't be here.

We rent our house, and we don't know any of our neighbors. I know who the dogs owner is, because I have seen her stop and pick up the dogs on her way down the street when she gets home from work.

My question is, what do I do about these dogs? I have considered calling animal control, but I don't know what to say. My mom and dad told me that because they are my chickens, that I should solve the problem. My chickens free range, and I'm really worried about this Spring when they start spending the day outside again. Does anyone know what I should do?

edited by staff

 

[blucoondawg]

When the dogs are loose call the sheriff's department and report them for harassing your livestock, tell them the name or address of the dog owner and that this is a daily problem and explain how she lets the dogs loose and leaves them to terrorize your animals. Tell the authorities if this activity continues next time you will shoot the dogs. Maybe you have animal control officers in your town/county, if so the sheriff's department will tell you to call them instead, either way you will have complaints on record about these animals. Call them every time they come to your property, and if possible video tape or get pictures of them harassing or killing your livestock, even pictures or video of the dogs on your property not harassing anything will be in your favor as evidence that these dogs are allowed to run at large. After that if the authorities aren't of any help, which in some areas they are not, I would shoot the dogs, in my county of Wisconsin it is legal to kill dogs which are attacking you or your pets or property. Though I would only do that if I caught them in the act of going after my animals or after the police or animal control was unsuccessful in dealing with the issue.

 

[MsChickenMomma]

I can call and report the problem. I can't shoot the dogs though. I am too young to handle a gun, and my parents would never do something like that. Even if they were attacking my chickens.

I tried to take pictures of them this afternoon. I was only able to get a picture of one of the dogs. What do I do with the pictures I take? Do I give them to the owner of the dogs, or the animal control officer?

 

[bwahk]

I agree. Its legal here in CA too, it happened to my friend.. his neighbors dobermans were attacking my friends horses. He warned them multiple times and finally called the police, they told him it was within his legal rights to shoot any dog that came onto his property and was harassing/killing his animals.

Anyway, kudos for handling this yourself! You're very mature for your age. I hope the cops help... don't delay in calling them. If any of your animals die they could be liable for damages.

Please let us know the outcome.

 

[bwahk]

id go straight to the animal control... the owner clearly doesn't care what damage her animals cause.

 

[MsChickenMomma]

Okay. I'll see if I can give the animal control officer a call today. What do I do if they say they can't do anything about it? We have reported a different problem to them before, and they said they couldn't do anything about it. Rather than call them, should I just ask my dad to help me take the dogs there?

 

[bwahk]

Will the dogs bite if you try? You could call and ask their advice on how to handle it... see what they say.

 

[blucoondawg]

I wouldn't touch the dogs you could be bitten, as for the pictures or video just take them and keep them on your computer or whatever way you store them, make note of the date and time the picture was taken, I don't know how your area works, in my area our township doesn't have an animal control officer, so the duty falls to the County Sheriff's department to enforce our county's animal control ordinance. Where you are there will either be city, township, or county animal control ordinances, the county ordinance will be followed unless your specific town or city has it's own ordinance. I would start by calling the Sheriff's Department, I actually started by sending an email directly to my Sheriff explaining the problem, he gave my email to one of his Lieutenants who called me as I left my phone number on the email. He explained how they would handle the issue and that I was to make sure and leave my name when filing complaints against the dogs so I could be called on to testify in court and if possible to get pictures. The pictures can be given to the cops in the event they write a citation so they can be used as evidence if the dog owner goes to court to fight the citation. The Lieutenant also emailed me a full copy of our county's animal control ordinance, it covers everything from abuse and neglect to viscious animals and livestock protection. When you call or email the Sheriff's dept tell them where you live, give them your address and they will know whether they can handle your problem or they can direct you to the appropriate authorities be it animal control officers or city/village police department. It is too bad you are not from a gun owning household as many times the authorities are very slow to act on these issues, at least in my case they were/are. Taking physical action of some sort against the dogs is going to be the only answer if the authorities don't help you and they keep coming and harming your animals.

One other option is filing a lawsuit against the owner of the dogs, if they do damage to your animals you can sue for damages, also if they don't do damage but continue to come and harass and the authorities refuse to help, you can hire an attorney and seek an injunction against the dog owner, in this case the judge would make an order much like a restraining order where the court would be ordering the dog owner to keep their dogs away from your property and prevent them from running at large at all or they would face a consequence such as jail time or stiff fines or possibly surrendering the dogs. This is an expensive way to go as you need an attorney but if the authorities don't help and you cannot shoot the dogs this may be the only sure way to go.

You could also write an anonymous letter explaining that you are 14 years old and enjoy keeping your animals and inform the dog owner that their dogs have been coming and chasing and trying to kill your livestock on a regular basis and if it doesn't stop you will be forced to take action against her legally or otherwise. You may find that the dog owner has a heart for 14 yr old kids and their pets and will start locking up the dogs?

I see you are in Michigan and I believe I read a thread on here about Michigan having "right to farm" laws, those laws could very well have stipulations about being able to protect livestock from dogs, and they also may supercede any local laws which would contradict them.

 

[MsChickenMomma]

The dogs are very friendly. I have only had one issue with them, and that is the safety of my chickens, cats, and goats. I was able to get a few pictures of them. My parents just left to run errands, and it's just my luck that the dogs show up again when they are not here. For now all I have is pictures. I chased the dogs off because they were up by my barn again. I am unable to call animal control at this moment, because my parents have their cell phones with them.

Here are some of the pictures I took of the dogs.









These were the best photos I could get. What should I do with the photos? Give them to the animal control officer, or the owner? I could go over to the neighbor and tell her that if her dogs come on my property again, they won't be coming home. The only issue is that because of my age, I highly doubt I will be taken seriously. I also have trouble making myself sound serious when it comes to reasoning with an adult.

 

[blucoondawg]

Okay. I'll see if I can give the animal control officer a call today. What do I do if they say they can't do anything about it? We have reported a different problem to them before, and they said they couldn't do anything about it. Rather than call them, should I just ask my dad to help me take the dogs there?

Read my last post, I would start with the Sheriff's Dept. Many times animal control officers won't do anything about roaming dogs, especially if you are in a rural township where the town board just appoints a good old boy as animal control officer, they often just do it so they can make a few extra bucks off the town's coffers and don't have any ambition or real interest in doing any work. Get advice from the Sheriff's dept it is likely they have had these questions before. It may also help if you get turned away by authorities to research your specific rigths according to you state and local laws and write a series of articles in the editorial seciton of the local news paper alerting the public to the local authorities who refuse to do their job and maybe even alert a tv news station and see if they will do a story on it. This will make the dog owner as well as the authorities who refuse service look like mud and possibly get results, the squeaky wheel gets the grease is what I am told.