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 !

How would helping have stopped the dog escaping 2 weeks later and getting hit by a car?

The universe doesn't work like that.

Imagine if OP had been harmed by this random stranger?
We'd all be reading about it and saying poor woman, but what a silly thing to do.

@PennyApril54

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.
Why would they be frantic? The dog was trapped in the garden. There was no reason to frantically thump on the door and start demanding access.
A normal person would have knocked normally and asked and when told no, would have taken the option of waiting by the hole.

No, he was aggressive. He demonstrated behaviours that 100% would have made me refuse him entry. He sounded quite unbalanced. Or at least rude. That's a red flag abs any woman would be nuts to let someone waving red flags into their house

Absolutely.
I would be thinking wtf was she doing allowing some randomer have access to the back of her house for some dog🙄.
Not a chance would I do it.

YANBU.
Dogs not your responsibility. The owner shouldn't have let it escape and why should you have a stranger in your house and garden. They don't know your circumstances. You could be uncomfortable being on your own with this stranger, you could have young kids, you could be unwell etc etc

I wouldn't have allowed it either.

Ah, but apparently, kindness doesn't hurt anyone! Except being socially conditioned to ignore their own boundaries and acquiesce to demands is exactly how women find themselves getting hurt by strangers.

I did actually have a fairly similar situation with an animal that a passer-by had spotted running into my back garden. The woman had already come onto my front garden uninvited with her child and was trying to get access via my locked side gate, which is nowhere near my front door. I saw her through a window.

I went out and she asked if she could get into my back garden urgently. I told her that it was not the first time that particular animal had passed through (my garden is large and not secure, so it was probably long gone) and that said animal was impossible to catch, having wasted a lot of my own time (at all hours of the day) trying to catch it on previous occasions of escape. In the meantime, I was in my own house, minding my own business and didn’t really expect to see strangers trying to break into my side gate…

Edited to add: she was slightly apologetic and perhaps realised that she had overstepped the boundaries but also seemed a bit put out that I didn’t want to get involved in her rescue mission, which is what it seemed to be for her…

In short, I would definitely put myself out for a person. If I could help, then I would. For an animal - I would weigh it up.

There is a difference between animal lover and dog lover
A lot of dog owners love their dog but don't give 2 hoots about wildlife.

This is exactly what I was thinking. A cornered dog is a stressed dog and very likely to bite because of it. Why should the OP, who was working, remember, put herself at risk? I'm sure that if she had done what many people suggested and been bitten as a consequence that her boss would not have been best pleased if she had had to seek urgent medical treatment. She gave the very reasonable suggestion that the man could wait by the hole in the hedge for the dog to come out of her garden and catch it himself. The fact that the man, in a fit of pique, decided not to really is not the fault of the OP, neither is the fact that, after the hole in the hedge had been brought to her attention, she very sensibly had it repaired, which meant that, when the dog escaped two weeks later, it was not able to get into her garden. The responsibility is entirely on the irresponsible owners. I say this as an owner of a dog who is of a breed that is prone to escaping. We take every precaution to make sure he cannot get out.

The lack of comprehension on here is staggering at times. Posters who can't see the difference between answering the door, nipping to the loo or making a cup of tea, compared with showing randomers through into your garden, then assisting them in capturing/restraining an animal which isn't yours and isn't theirs either.

Fucks sake.

Right so the message is, if there is a lost dog, you should;

Stop work immediately
Forgoe your potential safety and give up access to your house
Be held accountable for whatever a strangers dog does for a full two weeks afterwards

the dog must be top priority at all times?

what if it bit OP
what if it was in fact the mans dog he’d put in the garden

the dog was safe for two weeks after this incident until the owner fucked up again. How do we know this dog is even run over at all.

Absolutely @weirdstoriesdontaddup - dogs are more important than ANYTHING. 🙄

People don’t take working from home seriously. That much is clear.

Awww poor pup! I really don't think I could just have turned the person trying to help away! Can't see the harm.in them staying with the dog on the garden. I'd probably get them a cup.of tea. Explain if they managed to catch it they can come in with it, warm up etc.. If I was really busy I'd apologise that I couldn't be of much more assistance than that, but no, I wouldn't turn them away knowing the dog could be at risk of running off and getting injured.

You've fixed the fence now. You could have done that before and avoided this. Or you could have helped this time and fixed it after.

It does feel a bit mean to me that you didn't help at least help a bit by allowing the poor good citizen to sit in your garden!

I guess you haven't done anything officially wrong. You are not to blame for the dogs injury. But I do think not helping or allowing your garden to be used was a bit cold hearted!

You've fixed the fence now. You could have done that before and avoided this. Or you could have helped this time and fixed it after.
It does feel a bit mean to me that you didn't help at least help a bit by allowing the poor good citizen to sit in your garden!

How would Op have fixing before she did have stopped the dog from escaping from wherever it escapes from?

The "poor good citizen"😂didn't need to sit in the garden!

@jakesmommy

thats fair enough. It wouldn't bother me him sitting in my garden with a stray dog who known locally, & is likely to get hurt running around free.

i guess I care more about the dog than the very slim chance a guy trying to catch a stray dog is going to hurt me sitting in my garden.

The same good citizen that yelled and banged on her door?!

I don't know, I wasn't there.

maybe so he could calm the dog down?

maybe he felt more comfortable waiting in the privacy of a garden than sat like an idiot on the grass verge?

maybe it was raining & was hoping there would be some shelter in the garden?

like I said, I don't know, I wasn't there.

If it was about comfort, he's a raging fucking hypocrite as well as a weirdo for kicking off at a strange women cos she didn't want to let him in her house.

Do you honestly think that on first sight of this good Samaritan the dog wouldn't have just hopped straight back out of the garden (and potentially into the road a couple of weeks earlier than it actually did)?

So to sum up, if a strange man knocks on your door and demands access to your home and to stay in it for a while to grab a dog that is constantly escaping from its owners, you should not only allow this access, but make them tea, explain why you are not helping and apologise, and offer them the use of your home if the weather is inclement. If you DON'T do any of these things, this shows you are a) very unkind, b) paranoid about the possibility of male violence (because that so rarely happens, right?) and c) you hate animals or at least dogs. If you DON'T do any of these things you are solely responsible to anything that might happen to the dog, not its owners, and the random stranger is justified in being aggressive toward you, because you are not kind or nice.

I really think this one needs to be pinned in classics along with, "Give your house to your tenants, you big meanie." It is a masterclass in why women are socially conditioned to be kind, at all costs, but mainly theirs, and that their time is not valuable.

I don't quite see his logic, but he's just taken the dog to the vets!! Maybe he thinks if she'd let the warden catch it, it wouldn't be out today running around the roads?

like I said, I wasn't there (either time), I just said what I would have done.

I wonder how many posters on here suggesting the OP should have helped catch/comfort/cook a three course meal for The Dog are also posters who think those who work from home do fuck all all day.

Maybe, just maybe, if the owners were responsible, the dog would not have been out running around the road?! This is in no way, shape or form, the OP's fault or responsibility.