Shutterstock

If you ask me, the only place a dog should be off-leash is someone’s yard or a fenced-in dog park.

Not out on public streets or in public parks.

Because that leads to a lot of problems, typically.

And it’s especially wild when people do this with dogs who aren’t trained…at all.

Take a look at what this woman had to say about a neighbor and their dog who are driving her up the wall.

Neighbor who lets dog out off leash.

“We live in a townhome that has another house on either side of us.

We’re in a townhome community so there’s lots of other buildings and neighbors around us too. Renewed our lease in June, never had a problem here. Our neighbors to the left of us moved out this summer so we knew we’d be getting some new neighbors.

All good.

For context: we have two cats that love to go on walks. They’re both harnessed and will spend up to an hour just walking around our building. They’re love and it’s a great chance for us to get outside too.

Lots of our neighbors have dogs and we’ve never had an issue before. All the dogs are leashed (no one has fenced yards) and if they see us they give a wide berth and so do we.

Uh oh…

Anyway, these new neighbors move in and pretty quickly I notice they’ve got a little dog that they let out to use the bathroom unleashed. It’s a small poodle something mix, maybe the size of a cockapoo.

Not anything intimidating to me but I already know it’s going to be a problem with our cats. I figured the dog would be let out once while we’re walking them, owners realize it’s an issue, apologize and correct.

Well, that’s not what happened.

The first time, me and my cat are on the side of our building minding our own business. The dog rounds the corner, sees us, and immediately starts charging towards us barking. I scoop my cat up (no easy feat at 36 weeks pregnant) and start backing away from the dog.

Take a hint!

The owner rounds the corner and is so chill. She’s cooing at my cat who is freaking out in my arms, trying to tell me her dog just barks but doesn’t bite (like I care) and is not moving to grab her dog at all. I’m telling her “your dog needs to be leashed. This isn’t okay” but she doesn’t care.

Eventually the dog gets bored and runs into the field next to our house. I call the housing office the next day and guess what: there’s no dog on their lease! They say they’ll speak to the neighbor and I pray that’s the end of it.

Incident two was with my husband.

He was with our other cat and just chilling on our front steps. He’s on his phone and next thing he knows, dog comes barreling over from the neighbor’s house.

He didn’t even realize the dog was there and it and our cat were face to face.

He’s trying to grab our cat, our cat’s trying to sprint inside, and the dog is barking at my husbands ankles with again, no leash and no owner. At this point I tell my husband he should’ve kicked the dog and call Housing again.

Housing says they’ll speak to the neighbor again but I felt like they were a little annoyed at me calling.

This is ridiculous.

Incident three (current): the dog is stilling running around off leash. It also knows we have cats now who looks out our windows so it has started coming up on our porch to bark at our cats through OUR windows.

We just purchased a catio to let the cats hang outside when the air is cooler but I’m stressed with this new development that I won’t want to let them outside at all. I’m also now 39 weeks pregnant and really don’t want to be dealing with this.

I haven’t called Housing yet, I plan on it tomorrow.

What are my options here? Just continue harassing housing till they do something about it? At some point is it reasonable to call animal control because it’s illegal in our county for dogs to be unleashed?

Also, hypothetically speaking, if I were to kick the dog on our porch in defense of our pets, would I be in any legal trouble?

Just trying to gauge all my options I’ve never had to deal with something like this before.”

Reddit users spoke up.

This person had a lot to say.

Another individual weighed in.

This person shared their thoughts.

Another individual spoke up.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a man who stops helping his neighbors out with his snowplow after they complain about his farm.

And this person shared their thoughts.

This is so rude!

And it’s also potentially dangerous.

Come on people, get it together!

Her neighbor is a very irresponsible dog owner!