My Husband hates our neighbor's dog behavoir. Help me please

Why doesn't your friend keep her dog in her own yard?

We have 3 dogs, they have three dogs, we have always been ok with each others dogs visiting. We live next door to each other in an open field setting. I just wish my husband would lighten up. I love my friend and to me you don't sweat the small stuff especially things that can be fixed or repaired. So he wants a nice yard and that is great..I just wish friendship meant more to him. The dogs are free to run like they are meant to be and we have never had problems before. We have lived nxt door to them for 15 years. This dog has only been here for 2 years and it is a big "Nufie" and the holes are big, but my friend fixes them and is trying hard to take steps to train the dog. My husband said he would help her put up an invisible fence in order to keep the dog from digging over here and I think that is what started the fued. I just want peace and love and don't sweat the small stuff compared to friendship.

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My Husband hates our neighbor's dog behavoir. Help me please


It is an open field setting..

Anti-freeze baby it really works ....(well at least they say it does)


ha ha

I suspect your husband isn't going to "lighten up" at all. While you can easily dismiss it as somthing that can be easily fixed he may see the yard as his "art". Yeah, it can be fixed but if he's out there working on the yard and trying to get things a certian way and your friend's dog is tearing up I'd be pissed too. The freindship may be more important to you than the yard is but it's your friend - not his (from what I've gathered here).



I know a whole lot of people that'd quickly disagree with this. "Free" dogs get hit by cars, biten by rabid animals and make a nusiance of themselves. Your friend has pets - not wild animals. The difference between them is that wild animals are meant to be "free". Pets are meant to be under the control of their owners at all times.



Well, I'm operating here with exteremely limited info but you've reitterated this a few times now.

Hey, I'm all in favor of friendship but it seems to me that you are allowing someone to do whatever they please in the name of friendship and ignoring what your husband may think is important in the process. It's a two way street. You can't just dismiss what he considers important and expect him not to do the same to you in return.

If you've had this friendship for 15 years I'd hope you'd be able to resolve the issue fairly easily. I suspect there is a middle ground here where your neighbor could keep their dogs under control and the yard problem goes away. If this neighbor is a good friend they'd understand that the yard is important to your husband and wouldn't let their dogs dig it up and they wouldn't have any heartburn about controlling their dogs.

Owning a dog entails certain responsibilities, among which are preserving the dog from harm and preventing the dog from doing harm. I'm with fishin' on this ... free-running, unsupervised dogs are a danger to themselves and to other critters and things. A good sized chain-link kennel could be erected for unsupervised outdoor excersize, or, less restrictive to the dogs and perhaps less unsightly and less apt to mar the "look-of-the-neighborhood", underground radio fence can be employed. Perhaps, in the interest of maintaining tranquilitiy and protecting your respective dogs, you and the neighbor might split the cost of a radio fence. Self installation cuts the cost way down, and a couple acres can be done over a weekend by two couples with some shovels and sweat.

We live in an "open field" setting too ... on a farm in farm country. We do have a pretty good sized fenced-in area surrounding the house, and The Puppies are never outside the fence unless a human is too (apart from the occaisional short-lived escape). Haven't had any pups hit by cars, haven't had any neighbor complaints. Skunks and porcupines are a different matter, but, oh well.

Here's an article on the importance of leash laws: http://www.petpeoplesplace.com/Care/Dogs/003/30.htm

Since I don't know what state you live in, or even if you are an American, here are overall laws concerning dogs: http://www.animallaw.info/articles/ddusdogstatutetable2.htm

For example, Mississippi has the following laws on restricting dogs' movements: Running of Animals at Large: MS ST 19-5-50 The full text is here: http://www.animallaw.info/statutes/stusmsst19_5_50.htm

Dogs Running at Large; Vaccination: MS ST 41-43-11

Has the Hole Digging, Lawn Degrading Dog become a focus for other problems in this "friendship". The Owners of undisclipined dogs often have other faults.

From your entry it seems that your friend's dog is a habitual offender--which means she's habitually ignoring your husband's feelings. You seem to be habitually defending her.

You think friendship is more important than a desecrated lawn. Your husband does not think so. You think your scale of values is more valid than your husband's scale of values.

He thinks your friend should change. You think he should change.

Who is more important to you?

It seems to me this question and some of the answers are freighted with a lot of psychological anxiety here.

The neighbor is trying to fix the problem, has enrolled in dog training and does fill the holes. Yes, some kind of fence that keeps the dogs in their bounds on all sides of your property (and one that does that for their property) is wise for many reasons including legal ones. The fence, as timber mentioned, wouldn't have to be at the property line.

Your husband is perfectly right to be vastly irritated - a man's garden is his castle - but you are not wrong in thinking that friendship, especially one of long standing, is important. Just in practical terms, everybody getting along as neighbors is tension relieving.

I don't think it is a matter of choosing sides between the friend and husband, ergo choosing between them - that is really an escalation to me. Both neighbors have immediate reasons to build a fence to keep your dogs in your space, and you and your husband have extra reason in one of you not wanting a difficult dog on your property unwatched. If the dogs are to play together sometimes, then they can do it on one side or the other with human company present.

If I were your husband, this would tick me off too; if I offered to help provide an effective, quick solution to the problem, yet the neighbor refused ("started a feud"), I'd think the neighbor was a jerk.

My Husband hates our neighbor's dog behavoir. Help me please
I have read all the replys to my husband and neighbor "dog" problem and I must say I am in shock. I truly thought, and still do, that in todays world that true friendship is worth more than any garden or yard. WWJD is my theory and I know that is in another forum however, all I ask is, does anyone know of a good way to stop the digging. I am not going to divorce my husband or my friend..By the way we all have been friends for years this is not just "my" friend and the love that one experiences thru true friendship has far more meaning to me than a well kept garden. I would rather lose all my garden than lose my friendship and I will not feel that I am wrong in that area. All of us have let our dogs run to each others homes to play and never did we feel that it was a problem. And to the ones who say "leash law" we do not live anywhere near where our dogs would be harmed or harm anyone, we love our animals and take good care of them. Thanks to all of you for your replys. I shall leave this forum now with a new respect for others feelings about their gardens and lawns and I will still be a bit frazzled, but you all did help me have a different perspective on dog/neighbor behavoir and I took it all in...I love my husband, I love my neighbor, I love our dogs...This "fued" as I call it will be between them from now on..I will step back and let them figure out their issues and if they are the friends to each other as I believe they are, it will all end in a peaceful cook out around a nice campfire and we will all be pleased that the digging has ended. Thank you...

Re: My Husband hates our neighbor's dog behavoir. Help me pl


I think you may have missed a significant part of the major point here. You can have "true friendship" and the yard/garden.

If it is "true friendship" then all sides respect the needs/desires of everyone else involved. A true friend wouldn't allow their dog to continue to dig holes in their friend's yard knowing that it displeases their friend. I suspect that the "WWJD" response here would be that he would take responsibility for his pet and not allow it to pester his neighbors.

Not intending to be hurtful here but your expressed desire to maintain "true friendship" comes across more like "holding on in desperation". I can appreciate your desire to maintain a friendship over a lawn but it doesn't sound like your friend feels as strongly about the friendship as you do. I'd think that if they did they'd go out of their way to control their pet.

I agree w/ fishin' ... and I feel I should point out whether or not someone lives " ... anywhere near where our dogs would be harmed or harm anyone ... " is wholly beside the point of leash laws; if there is one (and regardless where you live, the county, municipality, or township just about surely has one - its a matter of institutional liability), you're bound by it regardless what your feelings on the matter are. Ignoring leash/animal control laws not only can get you some "ain't-no-way-to-win" legal hassle, but set you up for some very inconvenient liability issues.

It's not that I feel your friendship is unimportant; what got to me, though, is that your husband did the same thing I would do--he offered to help (even though it's not HIS dog) with a quick and effective solution. The underground fence would most likely work and would not have any visible or other negative impacts on your neighbor's yard. If your neighbor didn't accept this yet didn't propose any equally effective alternatives, it is quite clear that she has no respect for your husband. THAT is what would bother me the most--the holes in the garden are inconsequential.

You would really rather lose you well kept garden than your friend? Or, rather, your husband's well kept garden than your friend?

Where then are your boundaries?

I don't mean this as the jibe it might sound, but still, as a serious question.

The thing is, friendship thrives on understood boundaries, even if they do need to be discussed. Friendship isn't about running amok over each other.