Not to help catch a stray/escaped dog! Now it’s my fault it’s been injured apparently!

[notmyproblems]

Someone’s dog keeps escaping and for some reason it kept making its way into my garden. It had been dodging cars apparently and being a nuisance. Regularly have people knocking asking is it mine.

Two weeks ago someone saw it run into my garden and they were banging on the door . I answered (I was WFH and busy) and they were demanding to be allowed into the garden to keep hold of the dog till the warden could get there. I said no. Wait till it goes back out again (I didn’t want someone I don’t know in my house / garden) then catch it and secure it .

Ive since got the gap fixed and the dog can’t get in anymore. Haven’t seen it

Had a knock on the door today (same person) saying the dog had been hit by a car and they’d had to take it to a vet and how it all could have been avoided had I allowed them access and they hoped I was happy with having it on my conscience. So i just closed the door as they were still talking which made them shout and bang on the door???

Im not the irresponsible dog owner so it’s not my fault !

No reason at all why the stranger couldn't wait by the hole if that was the only way the dog could get out. I would also feel very uneasy as a woman on my own trying to work with a stranger in my garden (who had to walk through the house to get in or back out).

I also wouldn't be going outside trying to catch a random dog while I'm supposed to be working either (in fact I wouldn't do that full stop - I'm not a dog owner and would have no idea how to handle it).

Totally reasonable on all counts!

Exactly. Putting absolutely everything else aside the best strategy to catch the dog was almost certainly NOT for people it didn't know to approach it through the garden when the dog already knew the route straight out! Random man sat by gap until dog warden arrived would probably have worked and OP might have been more amenable to a council worker with ID coming through the house to catch it.

Safety issues are not just about the man either. It's silly to suggest people who are not experienced handling dogs "just grab" a random dog. Not only the risk of a bite but potentially very frightening for the dog too.

What if OP had been in an important work's meeting?
Would that have been ok?

Or does it still not count?

I think you could have helped a bit more, clearly not an animal lover !

Two strangers when I'm in the middle of work?
Yes, I would care...

Cats get run over all the time but nobody says everyone else has to take responsibility for making sure they don't.

If you have a dog, you are responsible for it and to keep it under control. It isn't anyone else's fault if it gets lost or injured unless they deliberately hurt it.

And working from home is work. If the OP had been in a workplace whether office, school, shop etc she wouldn't have been there.

Do you mean the owner wasn't an animal lover?

Yes I agree.

But that's not what you meant, is it?

Well she answered the door so probably not that important!🙄

Yes it really is time that we stopped keeping (other) animals as fashion accessories, isn't it?

This.

I would have let them in the garden out of compassion for the dog. It really doesn't hurt to be kind and it's not like they wanted to stay in your front room.

Tbh I agree it is a bit much revisiting OP to have a go but I can understand them being a bit frantic the first time.

I answer the door to my postie when I work from home, sometimes I even go for a pee and my work is very important to me, its how I pay my bills. Doing those things does not make it any less important. Having randoms traipsing through your house and demanding to sit in your garden with someone else's dog is a much bigger imposition then taking mail from my postwomen. If he had that kind of time on his hands, he could have waited by the fence. I do wonder if he managed to find their owners of the dog and make time in his day to go round and bang and yell at their door, or is it just the OP he has a problem with? She made the right call not letting someone so entitled and aggressive into her home.

I'm not sure if I understand this right. So a dog keeps escaping from NDN and going in OP's garden through a hole. Random bloke sees it in OP's garden and knocks on her door saying can he come into house? Garden? to wait for dog warden. She says no, he can wait outside gap in fence. Two weeks later random man comes back ranting saying that because she said no, the dog was hit and it's all her fault. Or was it her fault that she'd blocked gap so that dog couldn't get into garden so ran into road instead? Has dog just been hit or was it two weeks ago and man took two weeks to decide to be a prick again?

Anyway the man is batshit and as usual would've acted completely differently if a man had answered the door.

It was inconveniencing OP.
She was online and working.

Can you just leave YOUR work whenever you like?

Hard to ignore someone banging on your door.

She answered because the knocking was "frantic"
🙄

Perhaps the OP is getting a lot of flack on here because she's committed the ultimate crime on MN of answering the door!😱

😅

I’m a little on the fence but do get where OP is coming from - what does this guy’s guilt tripping really achieve when the owner should have done more to keep the dog in to begin with? Saying this as a dog lover but I would get really annoyed at someone else’s dog getting loose and coming into my garden so often.
Admittedly I’d probably have let them come through the house but I can see why a lot of people, including OP, wouldn’t.

Absolutely NBU. There is no way I’d be allowing a stranger, a dog warden and a bloody random DOG to walk through my house. No, siree!

Is that a crime?

I'm an animal lover and I wouldn't have let the man come through my house, garden and hang about for a few hours.

No matter how lovely the dog is.
There are boundaries you know.....

All that would have happened would be the dog would be returned to the owner. And then it wood have escaped again. And got hit by the car

'it's not like they wanted to stay in your front room.'

HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT? Seriously have all these 'poor dog of course I'd have let a strange man in my house, what's happened to kindness, you're not an animal lover blah blah' posters never heard of a man gaining entry to a house under false pretences and committing sexual assaults or violent crimes? Is OP strong enough to physically eject a man who sits on her sofa and says he's not going anywhere. Did she know he didn't have a knife in his pocket? Or was a violent drug addict? Do you people live down a well?