Bad Dogs Are Taught By Bad Owners
We live in the city limits of Wake county, Raleigh, NC where there are strict leash laws. Our new neighbors moved in next door about six months ago and have two large Labradors who are let out the back door into the open yards each day and night.
One of their dogs is very sweet and well-behaved, while the other is rather aggressive and will charge at people and other dogs. We have asked them multiple times to walk their dogs on leashes and explained about the city leash laws of our state and county, but they refuse to keep them on leashes.
Two months ago, one of their labs charged at myself and my small beagle from across the yard. The next few seconds still make me so angry. The dog’s owner just sat there and watched as I tried to fight off her dog while picking up my beagle.
The dog bit my arm enough to draw blood, and I kicked her dog to get it to stop and back off from its attack. The owner then went into a rage over me doing this and the next day filed a complaint against me.
That backfired because they contacted me for my side of the story and ended up charging the neighbor a $250 violation. I didn’t file an animal control report because my bite wasn’t that bad and I thought the fine would set them straight.
Also, it’s not the dog’s fault her owner is an idiot. They continued to let their dogs run free and we have multiple videos of them letting their dogs run free and of the aggressive dog running onto our porch and throwing her body against our glass door, trying to get at our dogs inside our house.
Last month, I confronted our neighbor with the multiple videos and told her she needed to walk them on leashes and we were no longer willing to be afraid to use our back porch or walk our dogs anymore.
I told her this was the last time we’d be nicely asking her and next time we’d call animal control. Fast forward to six days ago, when I woke up to a nightmare. It was the sound of one of my dogs, for lack of better term, screaming. I jumped out of bed and ran into the yard where my sister and one of my beagles were being attacked by her dog. AGAIN.
My sister had curled around our dog and was being repeatedly bitten by the neighbors’ dog. I tackled the neighbors’ dog and (not proud to say as a lifelong animal lover) proceed to grab the dog by her neck and force her to the ground by her neck and shove her head into the ground while practically sitting on the dog to control her.
The neighbor finally got her dog inside. The results were my dog had a huge chunk ripped out of her throat, multiple rips in both ears, six broken teeth on her bottom jaw, a shattered front paw and a broken arm, and multiple bites to her face and rib cage.
My dog needed all broken teeth removed, pins in her arm and paw, dozens of stitches, and a skin graft (had no idea they could do this for dogs) to close the hole in her neck.
My sister needed 38 stitches from the bites she received, I ended up with 29 stitches from bites I received, and all three of us are on a plethora of antibiotics and follow-up care including rabies shots for my sister and me because her dog had no current shots.
Those shots are not pleasant in any way. Our combined medical/vet bills are 29k with still needing follow-up visits for all of us over the next few months. My neighbor is refusing to pay anything at all and claims she’s not at fault because our yard isn’t fenced.
She’s also claiming she’s going to sue us because apparently I broke two of her dog’s ribs when I tackled her to the ground. I cleared out my savings account to make the basic payments to save my dog’s life and don’t have any more money to hire a lawyer.
We can hardly afford the co-pays on our insurance to get our rabies treatments and prescriptions filled. I filed to get an advance on my pay but it can take up to two weeks to go through and I was served with a court summons today for injuries to her dog and her pain and suffering from the trauma of her hurt pet.
The claim also states that I intentionally caused harm to her pet and used unnecessary force to subdue her pet. I’m a 4’10 female and my sister is a 4′ 8 female. Her dog is almost as big as I am. I really don’t know where to start or how to deal with this. I feel like we have a solid case due to the videos and the paperwork from the first time she tried to blame us.
I also have messages that span her time as our neighbor via the Nextdoor app where she admits to walking her pets off-leash and her refusal to stop because it’s “her house.”
With not many other options, we took drastic measures. We each submitted a police report. The officer called animal control and viewed it as a good use of their weekend emergency service because the neighbor did not/could not provide proof of a rabies shot and is viewed as a public health risk and no one can confirm the dog’s aggression isn’t attributed to that.
That’s probably not the case but city law requires all dogs within city limits to be registered with the city and up to date on all shots. The officer suggested that we take our dogs and cars and leave the neighborhood between 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm or until we receive a follow-up call from animal control.
He also suggested we call our homeowners’ insurance after we were done at the station and had a report to give them. They took photos of our injuries and said we need to take pictures of our dog once we got home. We already took photos of ourselves and dog last night, but they wanted their own to file with the report.
We asked about getting a protection or restraining order but he said it would be very hard to do because we’d have the burden of proof showing that she maliciously and intentionally used her dog to harm us.
My boyfriend went out this morning and bought two cameras and a stack of SD cards. He has one set up to look out over our back yard and one looking out to where we park our cars and front porch.
This lady is still letting her dogs run out free after the attack and we can get that on video. My sister, dogs, and I are going to spend the night at my boyfriend’s house tonight just so we can stay clear of the crazy neighbor. But we went further than that.
We messaged most of the neighbors on our row and a few of them have had bad experiences and are willing to write statements. The kicker is the family directly behind us has a teenage son who took a VIDEO on his phone of the big attack!
The neighbor dog had tried to attack her son’s cat while he was on the back porch once, so when her son heard the yelling he whipped out his phone. I haven’t seen it yet but his mother said they’ll gladly turn it over to our lawyer and write statements. Story credit: Reddit / freerunlady92