Neighbor's dog constantly your property.

[spaniel]

I had to deal with this last year. First 2 years owning my hunting property no problems. I don't know what changed, but neighbor started letting his dogs run deer on my property. After 6 months of this I finally confronted him. I'd made several visits trying to foster a positive relationship before this, coming to the conclusion he was a POS but I wanted a decent relationship. The minute I brought up the dogs running I got a stream of 4-letter words and threats about what would happen if I shot his dog. He's got $1000 in this dog but public information tells me he's $400 delinquent on his property taxes. I swore I wouldn't shoot his dog, told him I was recording the whole conversation and the threats (legal here, but I wasn't), but said if the dogs continued to run I'd start making phone calls and make his life difficult.

After that he was clearly cruising the road to check if I was there, I think letting his dogs run if I wasn't there. I started taking a longer way in not past his house; as soon as he realized I was doing this the dogs stopped running.

My general position with people letting dogs run is these types of people only recognize strength. I had problems on my home place as well, 2 neighbors letting dogs run and sometimes violent ones. They got to threatening my kids and attacking my dogs on my own property. I was far too patient giving warnings, in hindsight. Finally I told one of them the next time their dog was a threat on my property I would shoot it. 10 days later it attacked my dog at my feet, and when I tried to separate them it tried to attack me. I retrieved a pistol and by the time I got back outside the dog was in the road with the neighbor, I told them to contain the dog because if it came across to attack again I would shoot it. They still refused to grab it, and it lit out after my dog again and I took a shot. I missed, but it scared it away. Both problem neighbors got upset and called the sheriff, who backed me up and told them to pound sand. After 12 years of never ending problems I finally had peace after that with no more dog problems.

 

[Telemark]

I don't think I could bring myself to shoot an innocent dog. I'd just catch it and find a nice home for it. And aggressive dog on my land I would absolutely shoot if it wasn't a criminal offense.

 

[Howboutthemdawgs]

The hierarchical valuation we put on animals is interesting to me. A dog that is allowed to run free is no better than a coyote and both will suffer the same fate if given the chance (not Timmy’s lab that ran away one night but we all know the dog we get on camera 6-7 times a deer season). Most wouldn’t think twice about whacking a coyote or coon but a constantly loose dog or a feral cat is hell on an ecosystem too. Heck at least the coyote and coon is native on the landscape. As a land manager we need more leverage our ability to protect and balance the landscape.

 

[yoderjac]

The hierarchical valuation we put on animals is interesting to me. A dog that is allowed to run free is no better than a coyote and both will suffer the same fate if given the chance (not Timmy’s lab that ran away one night but we all know the dog we get on camera 6-7 times a deer season). Most wouldn’t think twice about whacking a coyote or coon but a constantly loose dog or a feral cat is hell on an ecosystem too. Heck ag least the coyote and coon is native on the landscape. As a land manager we need more leverage our ability to protect and balance the landscape.

Yep, community ethics are both temporal and regional. When I grew up in PA, deer were just bouncing back. As a kid we were taught that if you saw a dog, any dog, chasing a deer, the ethical thing to do was to shoot the dog. When I moved to VA, I found they use dogs to hunt deer and dog hunters have special exceptions to the trespass laws that allow them to trespass on posted property to retrieve their dogs.

 

[pilotpip]

Several years ago I was climbing into my stand on opening morning, and heard growling, then barking right at the base of my stand. One of the neighbor's dogs decided to sit at the base of the stand with teeth showing and barking at me until sunrise. To make matters worse, it was unseasonably warm and there were storms approaching. I'm not going to sit in the woods on a metal tower attached to a tree with lightning around. I tried getting down, and the dog started jumping at me trying to bite. Went back up, waited until I had enough light, took some video of what was going on as evidence, and took care of the problem. Sure enough, later that day the dog's owner came over. I told them what had happened, and where his dog was. About 15 minutes later, the sheriff showed up. I showed the sheriff the video. The now former owner got cited because apparently it had bitten a neighbor a week prior. That was that.

I love dogs. I've seen plenty on our property and have just run them off by yelling or firing a shot over them. Never had to shoot one before that morning and hope I never have to again. However, I'd never hesitate if one got aggressive with me, or my family. I get that it's different in the country but I don't understand why people have dogs and just let them run around in the woods for days.

 

[4wanderingeyes]

An aggressive dog is different. You never know, it may have had rabies. My brothers dog got rabies, and a bunch of us ended up having to get the rabie shots. It wasn’t cheap, or fun.