When we were first looking at houses to buy we ran across two houses directly across the street from each other listed under the same realtor. Took an evening to come out and look at them both. The one we bought had the larger acreage, if slightly older house, better cared for house/property, the pool, the attached (large) garage, the carport, the woodburning stove…the one across the street might have been newer, but it wasn’t in quite as nice a shape, didn’t have the above mentioned extras, and the current owners were smokers. We put in an offer on ours, a bit under the asking price, and got it no problem. The house across the street was listed for 10k more than we bought for.
The following spring the house across the street still hadn’t been sold, and the owner turned it over to the bank (not sure if he walked away or not, didn’t ask), who sold it that summer for significantly less than he’d been asking for it.
The folks who bought it have 4 kids, and at the time only had one dog. Seemed nice enough, rarely saw the dog except when someone was outside. They said she was 11 years old, and she didn’t like Apollo at all.
September they got a puppy. Cute little thing, looks like a smooth coated collie or similar. Terrified of Apollo from day one. Mid November we started to realize that the reason Apollo had taken a sudden dislike to the sight of both dogs was because they had taken a sudden liking to using our yard as their potty area. It explained the random piles of poo that didn’t belong to Apollo. See, apparently at their old house, the older dog had been trained to stay in their yard with no fence, or restraint. I have my doubts. At any rate they never did any training with her to teach her the NEW boundaries, so when they let the dogs out for potty and exercise they didn’t bother to restrain them, and just ASSUMED that the older dog was teaching the puppy the boundaries. They were “surprised” when I chased the dogs back across the street one evening and asked them to keep their dogs out of my yard…..
Apollo goes ballistic at the site of a dog in his yard without permission. I don’t really want to come home one day and discovered he figured out how to go through a window.
At least one of the random piles of poo I picked up contained a rather large number of worms, and worms are the LEAST worrisome thing that can be passed on by dog feces.
And neither dog is light colored, and they were coming across the street to reach my yard. The street is not lit at night, and there’s no posted speedlimit, which means its the state limit of 55mph, which means even after dark people FLY down the road. I really don’t want to have someone knocking on my door at 9:30 at night cause a dog ran out of my driveway and got hit.
I tried to be patient, and give them time to do the retraining that would be needed to make sure the dogs stayed on the property, or take the other steps required to ensure it. But nothing changed, and at the beginning of January I went back over and we had another discussion. They swore they were working on it.
End of January I called animal control for the first time. It must have made SOME impact, for the next few weeks they sent a kid out with the dogs (almost) every time they let the dogs out. Not that sending a kid out did much when the kid wasn’t paying attention. But I considered it an effort, and took it.
Till the end of February when they stopped sending the kids out with the dogs, and the dogs started coming across the street again. This time I didn’t go over to have a chat. I just called animal control again.
Just about the same time period as my 2nd call they got a 3rd dog. Young male, possibly a boxer. Donno what the ACO said to them this time, but ever since then if the dogs are outside they’re on tieouts. Its an improvement. I’m not sure how long I expect it to last, but I’ll take it. However if that boxer is ever allowed loose at a time when we’re out with Apollo its not going to be pretty. He hits the end of his cable every time he see’s Apollo.
Of course, now they got a cat.
And they allow the cat free access to roam like they did the dogs.
Today the cat wandered across the street and strolled down my driveway to plant its butt in the middle of it, watching the swallows soar overhead.
Apollo DID NOT APPROVE.
Sigh.
