I’m not entirely sure where the “fraidy cat” stereotype came from considering the most I’ve seen a cat do when freaked out is just kinda go hide, whereas a dog who’s not sure about you will LOSE ITS MIND FOREVER.

And what if you’re a neighbor to such a dog?

You probably wouldn’t want to be told it was your problem now, would you?

In this story, two neighbors have dogs, but one neighbor’s dog is terrified of the other dogs. What should these neighbors do about it?

Let’s read the whole story.

WIBTA to insist my neighbor keep a yard schedule?

For background I have a severely reactive rescue dog. She’s terrified of other dogs and freaks out majorly when she sees them or hears them.

My partner and I have been working with our vet and a behavioral trainer and we’ve made some progress, but my dog is still not truly comfortable anywhere but her own yard.

The neighbor also has dogs.

A new lady just moved in next door, and she has two big dogs.

They seem like nice dogs, they are quiet and she works with them a lot.

The problem is that she works from home full time, and her dogs are always outside.

She doesn’t leave them there for hours or anything, but I never know when she’s going to let them out or for how long.

She also spends a lot of time out there with them after work and on weekends. I can hear her training and playing fetch or she’ll have them out with her while she’s doing yard work.

Her dog is scared of the neighbor dogs.

To be fair to her, she trains them and she doesn’t let them run up on the fence, and if they do bark, she makes them go inside.

They’re still out on the other side of the fence though and my dog is now scared and reacting in her own backyard.

When my dog starts carrying on, she is the one who has to go inside.

She already can’t enjoy walks and now she can’t even enjoy being outside.

She was hoping the neighbor would be more understanding.

I asked my neighbor if she’d consider a schedule for the dogs so that my dog can enjoy her yard too without the neighbor’s dogs freaking her out on the other side of the fence.

She was polite about it but said no, she bought the house with the yard for her dogs, and they use it. She said she’d be glad to tell me when she’s leaving with them for a period of hours, but otherwise she’s not going to change what she’s doing day to day.

So nothing changed and her dogs get plenty of outdoor time and mine gets none except for the stray times when she takes one of her dogs to a training class or takes both of them for a hike.

Now they’re in a quandary:

I’m really upset and want to insist that we adopt a schedule so that my dog can have some outside time too.

WIBTA if I insisted she work with me to adopt a schedule that’s fair to all the dogs?

Is this dog owner asking too much from her neighbor, or is her neighbor being unreasonable?

Let’s see what the comments on Reddit have to say:

If the dog is scared of the world, the solution is never going to be asking the world to stop.

Like, getting the perfect house is SO difficult.

Wait, do they have sound fences?

One of these dogs is clearly the problem.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.