Neighbours dogs using our garden as a toilet

[K2608]

Am I being unreasonable to leave the back gate open?

Next door neighbours boundary is a long hedge. They have two dogs that can get through: spoken with neighbours several times. Rather than doing something about it they just offer to clean up the mess.

I'm Absolutely fed up with cleaning dog poo up daily. And also not being able to use the garden. I have two young children and the dogs are huge! I wouldn't trust them with my children!

Tell them to sort it or you'll report that they aren't controlling their dogs.

Either to the council or the RSPCA/SSPCA.

They're arseholes because they have a responsibility to keep their dogs under control, by law.

I had this issue but the dog was a banned breed. Eventually I had no choice but to call the dog warden and the dog was seized. We moved house as there was no coming back from that whole situation. You have my every heartfelt sympathy.

In the immediate term, can you put up a fence? Your neighbours are completely unreasonable and offering to clean it up is not enough - it’s their responsibility as part of dog ownership to keep their dogs secure.

Awful of them OP. Ask them again to make it more secure, possibly with chicken wire? If they refuse I would do it myself personally.
Have you tried using a water pistol on them when you see them pooing?

Tell them to get their garden secure or you will report them.

We are currently having work done in our garden and priced up a fence for their boundary. But £2000 is a bit steep. We have also priced up chicken wire but I think they will dig or push it over from our side.

How are they getting in, via the gate or hedge?

They've offered to clean it up. So stop cleaning it up yourself. Get them over to clean it up every time. As soon as it becomes inconvenient they'll put a proper boundary in ASAP.

My neighbours did this for a while. I collected all the shit on a shovel and threw it into their garden each time then built a fence. I'm the end terrace house so I had to build a gate so they could have access. So I built another fence around the house so they only had access to the path leading to the front and put a lock on the gate going into the garden. Solved the problem for us.

He has big dogs too so we fenced half the garden with panel fencing and going to bamboo over the rest of the fence so we dont have to see his dogs.

Well it's their responsibility to secure their dogs, obviously, but in this case if they're not going to do anything I think I'd be taking steps to secure my own garden to stop them coming in.

I also don't understand your reference to the gate?

Oh yeah and I'd definitely be chucking the shit back over their hedge into their garden. It's their shit to deal with.

Do you mean if you leave your back gate open they'd escape OP?

I'd do that if that is the case.
They'll soon give a shit when it affects them.

They have a legal obligation to control their dogs. Have you been keeping a record of their dogs coming into your garden?

Most of the hedges here have chicken wire in them, to stop exactly that. I guess at first the chicken wire was alongside the hedge, but very quickly becomes part of the hedge!

They are getting in via the hedge. The gate is at the side of our house. We have asked several times. I have called the council and logged a complaint. They don't seem to care. Yesterday one of the dogs was sprayed with water (I never normally do this) but it was sat outside my kitchen window which was open because I was xooking and didn't stop barking for 10 minutes. The neighbours are nice enough but just don't do anything at all with regards to their dogs. They also have their daughters dog a lot!

Contact the dog warden. They might be able to help. In your circumstances, I’d be very tempted to leave the gate open but two big loose dogs running wild could cause an accident or if they aren’t trustworthy, I guess they could hurt someone so in the interests of public safety I suppose it would be unreasonable.

Have you said to your neighbour that you aren’t able to let your children play out in their own garden? What if you wanted to eat outdoors, have a bbq or get out a paddling pool in the summer? Do your neighbours understand that their dogs are preventing you from doing all of those things? If they understand that and don’t care - they aren’t nice.

You could also tell your neighbours that legally they are required to have their dogs under control and point out that if they don’t do this, ultimately they could have their dogs taken away and possibly destroyed. In our case, this happened because the neighbour’s dog was an illegal breed, but the police did initially suggest taking the guy to court on the grounds of not having his dog under control regardless of breed. You might have to make the severe consequences of their failure to act absolutely crystal clear. It might be the end of good neighbourly relations, but tbh that’s dead in the water as soon as one person decides the other’s garden is a convenient toilet/playground for their dog anyway.

It's their responsibility to make sure their dogs are secured in their garden. Totally unacceptable.

Leave the gate open. When they've had to collect the dog from the pound a few times they may decide to fix the fence.

Report the dogs to the dog warden as ‘unknown dogs on your property’ the neighbours will have to pay to get them back and this might make them more careful in future if they have to keep paying everytime. Also tell them they have to pay for any damages and hand them back their dog crap you have to clean up. I hate inconsiderate neighbours mine are similar with their dogs and just wish they’d rehome them so you have my sympathies

I would leave the gate open

All those saying leave the gate open....what happened if the dog got run over? I wouldn't like that guilt, it's not the dogs fault.

Personally I'd put chicken wire up in the hedge.

The thing about leaving the gate open is what if the dogs run into the road and cause an accident? Or they go for a child in the street? It would be the neighbour’s fault rather than the OP, but I don’t think I could bring myself to run that risk.

LaserShark it wouldn't. It isn't the responsibility of anyone but the owners to ensure their dogs are kept under control.

So it wouldn't be OPs fault at all.

That’s what I meant; it wouldn’t be the OP’s fault but in her shoes (which I have been), I’d be unable to let uncontrolled dogs loose into the street. But in my case, I reported the dog and it was destroyed and I felt no guilt whatsoever - it wasn’t my fault, just like this isn’t the OP’s fault. But I wouldn’t want any other innocent people to have harm caused to them by the neighbour’s irresponsible and anti social behaviour.

I get what you mean Laser I just think that far too often the responsibility for "doing the right thing" falls on the people who didn't create the situation in the first place. Not just in this case, in life in general.

Selfish twats will always be selfish twats and picking up the pieces to shelter them from consequences does nothing to shock them into action.