Ugh I feel your pain, all too real. Sounds like we have similar neighbors. Though they havent straight up taken any birds yet; people living to me on both sides just let their dogs go into our yard. I try to be a nice neighbor but its hard to tell my dog not to respond. Typically they will chase the little pug type dogs back over the line- they know not to take small dogs seriously. But my especially trashy neighbor has two pit bulls and knows full well the one, named Tank, does not like people. One time I was in my yard- luckily in my chicken run and he came charging at me like a feral hog.
Luckily the chicken fence was a buffer, but let's face it- that shoddy fence wasn't made to serve as an attack defense. The dog was so disturbed he didn't even blink when he hit the fence. My dogs, you know, the ones who always listen, were out in the dog area and when they heard him coming they were ready to rip his throat out. I wanted none of that. They are too pretty for fighting and vet's are too expensive. I yelled for them and they came running into the chicken run- an area I typically keep them out of. So I was able to contain them in the run with me, while my neighbors dog tried to attack us from the outside, but still fully on my property. Anyways when the lady came back to get her dog she didn't even say sorry, as he's still in full attack mode. It was bizarre. I eventually ended up putting up a buffer fence on both sides of the property which I think is pretty wrong. I feel like my neighbors sugar momma paying for things they should be taking care of since they can't control their animals. They said they would put up a fence "that weekend" after the attack and it never happened. Of course they are still producing children they can't take care of but that's another story. The cops were also over there for a growing operation they had going and while I have no stance on the product itself, I kind of judge a parent with an elementary student doing this in a state where it's illegal.
My other neighbor God bless him is a sweet old man and though he can't control his dogs, sometimes the person's attitude makes all the difference. I know he is bothered by his dogs not listening; though he can't make them listen really, at least he is decent enough to feel bad about it. One of his dogs, a rottweiler, actually attacked my dog while we were back in our woods. We said our neighbor could go for walks back there bc he is a veteran and it's important for people to exercise. We also let him hunt back there. At the time of that attack my other dog was back at the house- heard her baby cry and then came running all the way out to the woods to find her. When she got there she saw the rotweiler and then the rotty attacked her. She had a huge tear in her, emergency vet time as it was down to the muscle and you could see it all (super ew) and mr. baunlee had to hit the other dog with his fist in the side before it detached. I never even told my neigbor about her injuries because I didn't want him to feel bad. Then we noticed the dog wasnt around anymore. We asked him eventually what happened and I guess his dogs went after one of the pugs to the point that it almost died and also had to visit the vet. He found her a new home so that situation ended well.
It's usually harder to work with trashy people though, so my other neighbor, I just avoid them like the plague.
