Animal Wars

Well it finally hit the fan yesterday... Someone decided it was a "good" idea to post a "Warning" about letting your pets run loose. That you as an owner are responsible for not letting your pet get out or loose. One person going so far as to threaten to do something to the pet if it got in their yard. The funniest was one person insisting as soon as you walked in the house you put a leash on your dog or cat so they do not come out the door! Seriously how does that work?

Yes there are some people who do let their pets run freely that yet do not have fences. Which is understandable for people to be frustrated with. However, a majority of the loose pets are due to accidental escapes. My neighbor's dog recently discovered how to dig under their fence without them knowing. (It got in my yard).

All would been of the "normal" complaints but these people took it to a new level. They were basically telling everyone there was no way pets "escape". That it was the owner failings as an owner to be able to keep their pets under control. That they did not like a pet come to their front porch or near their "allergic" children. I pointed out that if your kids are allergic NOT to touch the pet then!

Finally told them you have 3 choices - 1. Post/Keep the pet till owner is located. 2. Ignore. 3. Call Animal Control to handle it. Complaining about a loose animal is not winning yourself a favorable view. Especially those who are posting open threats.

The fighting got so bad on FB, that the Admins had to stop 3 posts from comments. Honestly, yes there are dogs that do have owners who do let them run free. One of which is one of the Admins dogs. However, let some common sense and name calling rule when it comes to pets. They are like children to many people. I swear these people whom hate animals need to also take some responsibility. Like install a fence. If not, then call animal control. It just ridicolous to post on an open forum your going to do harm to an animal cause they crossed your front porch.

Rant is over. Anyone else had to deal with anti-animal people who have no common sense or rational thinking skills?

We do have leash laws where I am at. It is a bit confusing to many. The issue being we are in a county like environment with fields around us mostly. However, due to having two different developers they put us in two different city addresses. Which one city has more restrictions than the other. City "A" had a law about no cats outside unless contained in a cage area. Like a chicken coup etc..
City "B" does not have cat restrictions. They both have leash laws. The county not so much.

Some people whom let their dogs or cat roam may think it is okay as it is in the county. They do not know we are in city limits of city "A". City "B" is basically address only for mail delivery.

My thoughts are to get these people to call animal control instead of trying to make it an HOA issue. We are developer owned with a terrible PM. Having the PM do the job would be another nightmare.

Hoping by posting the 3 options it will stay in place. That way when we own the place people put animal control onto the authorities and not fellow man...

My cat was eaten by a coyote last year. We have field mice, snakes, and the occasional wild critter. Cats are actually good for our hood to have roaming about. Why these people freak out so much as to see a cat is beyond me.

24 April, 2011: I had just pulled my rental car into a parking space at the Danbury Hilton Garden Inn when my phone rang. It was my wife back in Austin, telling me that our son and his girlfriend had been walking our dog G in the park when they were attacked by a loose dog{1}.

So I have some strong feelings about letting animals run loose. It really can be an accident - hell, my same son who was attacked, many years earlier, once decided to go “free range” without telling anyone. But I believe that pet ownership is a responsibility, and people need to control their pets.

I’ve never understood the deal with cats. I’m highly allergic to them, and thus not sentimental about cats the way many people are. I know people who have “indoor” cats, who keep their house clean enough that I can visit and my allergies don’t trigger. But I know far more people who let their cats roam the neighborhood. “Hey, they’re cats, what can I do?” they say. Unsurprisingly, we have issues with feral cats in my neighborhood.

In short: I’m not a fan of people letting their pets run loose. When it happens, I’m inclined to look for a pattern: “once is happenstance” and so-forth. In my totally biased opinion anyone who repeatedly loses control of their pet shouldn’t be a pet owner.

Bill

{1} Son, GF, and G escaped with minor injuries. Attacking dog was put down. To this day my family has not told me who owned the dog.

Oh I am completely against the free roaming dogs that a few owners leave out. I agree that is an issue. It prevents me and others from feeling safe to walk there. I avoid that area as much as possible due to knowing they roam free there with no fence. The owners seem to be deaf and blind to the fact dogs are not to be roaming. One of which is the admin to our website. I agree that is an issue.

However the "fight" was over the people whom were irrational in stating loose pets are not accidentally escape artist. They insisted on it being irresponsible owners. Like every loose animal was just too much for them to see.

That is why I was like call animal control or post the pet location. Someone will gladly get it for the owner. Some were crossing the line in threatening people with actual harm or pets ... That is going too far...

letA the AC lived behind me and my neighbor. He complained about my dogs barking. It was his dogs! Ended up putting up a fence. Plus had to take one dog to the pound and one to rainbow bridge. Just so he would stop his complaints. I kept 2 of my dogs as they were not barkers. The other two were not really mine but others had taken in temporarily.

We had several fights. Animal control and I were cool with each other. They agreed it was a him thing and not me.

His dogs were pom poms that bit and yapped. I just ignored them. He had to butt into my business because he was scared of a "big" dog which was a border collie!

I know Alabama has a leash law. Each city has different variations to that law. The one city has one for cats not be allowed to roam. Must be in a cage or contained in the yard. The other city in our hood does not. The cats are not really a problem in our hood. We had some ferrel cats but have since disappeared.

One cat someone is complaining about has an Apple locating device around its neck. Still being complained about by this person. It is not monitoring their cat. Most of us do not let our cats out. We have more panicked cat owners posting how their cat is inside only and escaped by accident. Not many let theirs roam free due to the dangers.

It just so frustrating to hear people threaten an animals life for simply crossing their yard or eye sight. Nothing more.

This post is silly. I’m an animal person, but I disagree with much of what you say here.

If you own pets and they get loose in the neighborhood, it is absolutely you who is at fault. It is your responsibility as a pet owner to put measures in place to prevent them from getting loose. Understood accidents and slip-ups happen, but still, that’s your fault and you are the one to blame for the pet getting loose and for anything that occurs as a result.

People who dislike animals/pets don’t have to be understanding of your lack of ability to control your pets simply because you are a pet person and think everyone else should be too. People with children who are allergic to pets shouldn’t have to worry about pets spontaneously arriving on their porch because the pet owner can’t control them. People without pets shouldn’t have to construct fences to keep uncontrolled pets out of their property.

IMO, your thinking is a bit backwards and lacking in common sense and rational thinking.

If your postings on this site have any resemblance to how you interact on fb, then I can only imagine you were a significant contributor to the comments getting out of control.

An event happens once or occurs very infrequently = could be considered an accident.
An event happens routinely, as your use of "most of the time" indicates = not an accident (even if that's what you choose to call it every time it happens) but is definitely irresponsible.

Figure out something that works for you to prevent your dog from bolting out the door when you open it. If it happens routinely, then you are careless and irresponsible. It is most certainly preventable.

Some ideas since you can't seem to think of any on your own: train your dog, put up a gate (inside your own house or on your deck/porch), enter your house a way that your dog doesn't have access to (through garage, through rear entrance), install your own fence, shock collars (and more training), etc.

Yeah, it's me again with a quote:

“Mr. Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: 'Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action'.” ― Ian Fleming, Goldfinger

Regardless of what you think of Fleming or Goldfinger, it's a brilliant observation that applies to myriad aspects of life.

Bill

Yes. The Husband of a board member gunned his vehicle's engine and steered his truck straight toward a squirrel that was on the other lane of the road. I was jogging and right by his vehicle as he began his squirrel torpedo drag race. I could not believe it and thought there had to be some explanation, perhaps he droped something stomped on gas pedal and jerked the wheel I thought - I could not believe someone would do such an action.

A few weeks later he put out a subdivision-wide email, hypothetically wishing some resident died, and his writing included a pornographic reference in regards to another person. After his email made the squirrel incident seem like child's play, I had no doubt he was gunning for the squirrel.

Perhaps the guy is such a nut, squirrels are his mortal enemies.