Who was U here? Not my neighbour.

[AuntieCJ]

On my way back down the lane earlier I found my neighbour of a few doors up involved in a nasty sounding argument with a man. She has a large front garden with high fences and gates. A man had been trying to push a large barking dog into her garden. He'd opened the gate to do so. She'd seen him and rushed out to see what he was doing.

The dog had been running up to people and barking and running into the road, narrowly avoiding being run over. The man had caught it by the collar and was trying to put it into neighbour's garden. It's not her dog and she didn't want it in her garden, it was very big and barky and I don't blame her.

The man tried to insist saying the dog could cause an accident or attack someone because it was panicking. She said to take it to his own house and keep it there. He said his garden wasn't secure like hers. She said that if he left the dog there she'd let it out the moment he'd gone. He doesn't live near us but had stopped his car to try to help and didn't want to put it in his car.

All the time he was trying to push the gate and force the dog into the garden. By this time it was snarling and growling and it tried to bite him. He let it go and it ran off. Imagine if it had been trapped in neighbour's garden in that mood. It was U of him to try to do that, wasn't it? If I'd have found that big angry dog in my garden I'd have been frightened as was my neighbour.

There's lots of concern for the imaginary children in the garden and much less for the actual children not in the garden who might now encounter a loose dog.

You mean hypothetical, not imaginary. No one has ‘imagined’ children who weren’t there. The point is this man didn’t KNOW there were no children there. It’s very easy to make comments like this once you know children weren’t present. If you don’t know, you’re making a potentially dangerous assumption.

For all those of you desperate to paint this man as the Good Samaritan, take a look at the elements of his story that don’t add up. He apparently knew the garden was secure enough to hold an uncontrollable dog - yet he could access it without letting go of said dog? He based his assumption of security on high fences - what if one of the panels was lose or rotting? He can’t have had that long to assess it if he’s still trying to control the dog, with no lead. That’s before you even consider the possibility of there being a way around to the back garden, where there could easily have been children or other animals. Also, while it might not have been Kew Gardens, as one poster so sarcastically put it, the man could easily have failed to spot a cat, for example.

There’s also quite a lot of assumed knowledge going on here. People keep saying ‘Call the dog warden’ as though that’s someone we all have on speed dial. I have no idea if there’s a dog warden anywhere near me. Is this something separate to the RSPCA? I genuinely have no idea, and I doubt I’m the only one.

Our dog has got out and I would be really appreciative of someone stopping their car to ensure it was safe, though our boy can find his way home (he sneaks out via broken fences onto another road if gate is left open then walks down the road to the front of the house!)

What if one of the people with broken fences was the OP’s neighbour?

Plus, someone loves that dog like a child and will be devastated if something happens to it. I think your neighbour was extremely unhelpful and selfish.

Pretty big assumption. They love it so much that they let it loose to roam the streets? Would they do that to their child?

Exactly @FrancisCrawford What makes me laugh is all the posters criticising the neighbour for her NIMBY attitude, completely glossing over the fact that it wasn't his back garden either. He was literally trying to put it in someone else's yard and make it her problem. He was offered a solution and turned it down.

Ive collected loose dogs before, dead cats, poorly pigeons etc before (its now a running joke between anyone that knows me). They all go in the car (even DHs precious classic). I stopped once and a guy with a much more suitable car then mine also stopped, he said "well i can't have the dog in mine" , so in it went to the limited edition fancy car i happened to be in.

Off to the local vets to see if it was chipped / to be collected by a warden .
I don't know what on earth this guy was thinking, if someone else stops i have asked if they are able to step in if its going to cause me real issues to deal with it (although i had one recently where no one helped and it was getting really really difficult). But if they don't want to / can't either then its their prerogative.
Your neighbour was not being unreasonable. The guy wasn't being unreasonable asking for help but he shouldn't have pushed it on.

He refused the practical offer of substitute leash, with which he could have secured the dog to a lamppost etc awaiting RSPCA or whoever

A few pp have made this point, but IIRC she offered a belt? I don’t see how he could have secured the dog to a lamppost with a belt unless the owner was some kind of giant.

Tying the dog up or shoving him in the car (which I don’t think is a good solution as he could have caused quite some damage) isn’t going to calm a panicked dog, only aggravate the situation. Enclosing the dog in a garden to calm down and protect the public until someone can remove it was a good plan, the problem was there was nobody with a garden willing to offer it! Sometimes you have to put yourself out for the greater good. Luckily it seems that dog eventually left the area somehow without causing an incident. I wonder how people refusing use of their gardens would feel if a serious incident happened that they could have helped prevent.

A few pp have made this point, but IIRC she offered a belt? I don’t see how he could have secured the dog to a lamppost with a belt unless the owner was some kind of giant.

What are you on about?

He is an idiot - shoving a dog into a random strangers garden - wow.
He could have put it in his car if he was really bothered.

Maybe this is a new fad! I was woken up the other morning to a dog furiously barking somewhere down our road. It was barking for hours. I later went out to speak to a neighbour where i thought the sound was coming from. Apparently 'someone' had put this dog in her front garden, it had been in there barking from 5am in the morning. She called the dog warden at 8.30m (when they open) and they said they'd someone out. At 10.30am when no one had arrived she called again, the hadn't put her original call on the system! The dog warden eventually arrived at 1.30pm!!! The dog had been in the garden barking for the entire time, obviously frightened and stressed (understandably) but she couldn't let it in the house as 1: she's quite elderly herself 2: the dog seemed quite aggressive and 3: he has her very elderly and infirm father in the house (who is bedbound downstairs). So to all the people saying 'just call the dog warden' , it's not always a quick solution.

Raised a good point there @genius1308 - and also with the amount of dogs being abandoned how does anyone know that's not what he was doing? I saw a video of a guy dumping a dog around Christmas time, it was awful, but it happens. For all anyone knows it could be his own dog he's trying to get rid of.

Either way it wasn't acceptable for him to just dump it on someone else without their knowledge or consent. He didn't have to put it in his car either, he could have accepted the belt as a lead and stayed with the dog until dog warden/whoever arrived.

After careful consideration, I have concluded that the dog was unreasonable.

*t’s easy

Put one end through collar, then around lamppost, railing etc.
Buckle belt

Done.*

Ah, that makes , was imagining some kind of stray dog without a collar ( must learn to read or remember better)

I would certainly have let the man stow it safely in my garden while waiting for animal control.

Even if that meant you were trapped indoors for several hours, EllenMP? And even if you had appointments that you had to get out for? And even though there were a number of other perfectly satisfactory ways the man could use to resolve the problem which would avoid you being trapped indoors?

You are still insistant people are wrong. So why waste your time asking if you don't want anyones opinion unless they agree with you?

Bizarre interpretation of what message boards are all about, DragonGirl. OP could be perfectly open to reasoned opinions that don't agree with hers but nevertheless discover, as has in fact proved to be the case, that no-one in practice produces a convincing argument to show she is wrong.

Tying the dog up or shoving him in the car (which I don’t think is a good solution as he could have caused quite some damage) isn’t going to calm a panicked dog, only aggravate the situation.

The object of the exercise is supposed to be to get him off the road and keep him safe. Calming him down is strictly secondary.

Enclosing the dog in a garden to calm down and protect the public until someone can remove it was a good plan

As genius has demonstrated, putting a dog in a garden doesn't necessarily calm it down. And how can it be a good plan when there's a pathway down the side of the house and you don't know what's in the back garden?

As genius has demonstrated, putting a dog in a garden doesn't necessarily calm it down. And how can it be a good plan when there's a pathway down the side of the house and you don't know what's in the back garden?

Exactly. The safest option would have been to tie the dog up and have a warden come get it. It's a danger to no one that way, not the man, the old lady, traffic or pedestrians