How WAS your morning, Suebob?
Well, let me tell you.
But first, a photo:
What is it, you ask?
That, my dear friends, is the spot in the fence where White Trash Neighbor’s big grey pit bull has been chewing the boards up. Yes, chewing through wood with his big sharp fangs, sometimes looking meaningfully at me as he does it.
He is not content to bark at Goldie through the fence. He wants to get into my yard to attack Goldie. He and his friend, the other pit bull, really, really hate Goldie.
This morning it got really bad. The dog busted a whole fence board – I think it was a 1×6 – out, just head-butted the board over and over til it popped clean off the fence. Then the dog stuck its massive Cujo head all the way through the hole and growled and barked at us.
I called my landlord’s assistant, who isn’t really worth the paper he is printed on, to come help PLEASE NOW. He hemmed and hawed and said he didn’t have any wood to fix the fence and I mentioned that we were trapped in the house and that Goldie could not go outside to pee, which was stressing both of us out A BIT.
He said he’d see what he could do. Knowing what both he and my landlord usually do (stall, ignore, forget, refuse to spend a dime), I was afraid Goldie would just have to go pee in the corner of the kitchen for a few days.
Then the phone rang and it was Life Alert. They had received a call from my mom’s alert button, but could not get her on the phone. They had called the paramedics, who were on their way. At this point, I assumed the worst about my mom. I really did.
And I was naked, getting ready for my mid-morning shower (one of the great pleasures of working at home is that I can take a shower on my morning break). I raced around flapping my arms and tripping on things and finally got clothes on.
Then I took deep breaths and ran out, throwing dog biscuits over the fence to distract the dueling Cujos and hustled Goldie into the car before the killer dogs noticed she was outside. This was not good for my blood pressure, which was already, as you might imagine, a tad high from thinking my mother had collapsed on the floor of her home.
We were on our way to mom’s when Life Alert called back. The paramedics had reported in and Mom was ok. She had gone outside without her phone and had gotten the wheelchair stuck in the lawn.
Thank goodness for her having the call button. I burst into tears at the stoplight, causing a homeless guy who was crossing the street to stare at me.
So then Goldie and I came home and I had to quickly run into the house to get biscuits to repeat the biscuit-tossing, dog-sneaking and praying the 2 Cujos didn’t eat us.
The landlord’s assistant and his buttcrack (his buttcrack always makes an appearance whenever he does) finally got over and fixed the fence, for now. But I just know the Cujos are out there, plotting, plotting. I can hear them thinking.
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Suebob's Red Stapler 
Time to buy a grizzly bear. The pet arms race begins…
I have been traumatized by a bear, dogs, a rattlesnake and monkeys this year. This crap has gotta stop.
I think I know the answer here, but is there anything the city can do? It’s clear that they are eventually GOING to get out and cause some harm. Geez. I hate rednecks.
I don’t think there’s a city dept of “Scary dogs that menace you but have not yet come onto your property,” unfortunately. I think the real problem is my landlord, who is too cheap to replace the 50-year-old termite-ridden fence. This is the same man who suggested I close a loose oven door by wedging a 6-foot board between it and the wall instead of him buying a new door spring.
Yikes! What a morning! I’m glad everything worked out okay in the end, but that situation with the neighbor’s dogs sounds like a ticking time-bomb.
It was truly scary.
Something about the pit bulls reminds me of A Christmas Story.
Glad your mom was okay.
The Bumpus Hounds!
I’m glad your mom is okay. And I wish I had advice for you about your neighbors, but often when you try to take action, even if you’re completely in the right, it leads to war, and you don’t want to live like that. Since you’re renting, is moving an option? It’s awful to feel like you’re letting yourself be driven out, but that doesn’t sound like a good situation.
Oh, I know. To White Trash Neighbor and his wife, their dogs are just big loveable scamps. I have mentioned the menacing before in passing and they just chuckle it off.
The problem is that I love where I live. I love having a small, perfect-sized house with a big yard for Goldie. Every time I come home, I am so happy. I have a hard time thinking about moving.
What a nightmare of a morning! I’m glad you’re mom’s okay, glad Goldie’s okay, glad you’re okay.
But those 2 pitbulls make me nervous. Very nervous.
Yeah, it gave me new sympathy for people who live in danger all the time. It is hideous to be trapped in your house with something scary outside.
Maybe our policeman relative could talk to someone. All dressed in his uniform with his guns showing.
It would be fun, but I’m not gonna ask.
Didn’t think you would.
Can you ask if you can hire your own fence repair person and deduct the cost from the rent?
My landlord is waaaaaaaaaaaaay too cheap for that. He will likely get some more old boards and rusty nails and just keep nailing them up.
can you make friends with the scary dogs? you first, then maybe goldie? or just you? or get a friend to videotape them menacing you to show to the neighbors? (in the “i don’t want anything to happen and if your dogs break through the fence and attack, i’ll have them killed” but friendlier sort of way?)
I feed them biscuits all the time, so I think they are kind of almost ok with me. Goldie is an alpha dog and there’s no way she’s gonna be their friend. White Trash Neighbor and his wife…they’re really clueless.
Yikes. Glad your mom is okay. And the dogs? Not fun.
Mom is embarrassed I posted about it. She’s been getting calls from the family. Oops.
That is seriously scary. And so stressful.
I think I would be less freaked out if my dod hadn’t already suffered 2 dog attacks that cost about $1000 total to repair her from.
Eh, I’ve been on the other side of your situation. And God love it, the renters finally moved about a month ago after 4 years of harassing me. I have 2 large dogs and the former renters had 2 yappy small dogs. They also had about a dozen obnoxious shrieking grandchildren who started a war with my dogs when I first bought my house by kicking the fence, throwing things at the fence and yelling at my dogs. Blahblahblah. Those renters called AC on me twice and both times AC told them I was not in violation of anything. Once their 2 little dogs dug under my fence and came into my yard and my two supposedly menacing dogs didn’t hurt a fur on their bodies. Add to that that I am gone 12 hours a day and my dogs are inside all day – never left outside alone; only outside maybe 20 minutes a max per day to pee. I am so glad I finally won and they moved. I’m sure their new neighbors are just loving them.
People asked me why I didn’t call Animal Control. It wasn’t really an animal control situation. It was a crappy fence situation. The dogs are truly scary, but I don’t think they’re bad dogs. They just hate Goldie. She is not incredibly fond of them, either, but at least she’s deaf, so she mostly ignores them because she can’t hear them barking at her.
I’m so glad your mom is okay!
I have never understood the approach of some landlords of just letting a property deteriorate with no maintenance or improvements. We have a rental property (which we regret ever buying and would like to sell but it’s not happening in this economy…) and we save money by managing it ourselves not by skimping on repairs. No wonder it wears us out – apparently the correct approach is to just not respond to tenants and never spend any money on anything, lol.
I don’t even think it is as much a matter of my landlord not wanting to fix things. I think he just thinks fixing things in a really screwed-up way is acceptable. I wonder what his house looks like. I know he lets his dogs suffer without veterinary care, because his poor dog had ear mites forever before he died.