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 !

I think both of them were unreasonable 🤷‍♀️

Quite. I'm so glad I live where I do, and not in MN land!

You don't have to be nice or warm to random men who knock on your door.

The dog was fine, it got out of her garden under its own steam and presumably went home or was caught later. So OP not being kind did no harm.

Random Man was free to contact local Facebook groups etc too wasn't he? Why is OP responsible for not doing that?

Anyway, the thread title is misleading imo. I totally fail to see how letting Random Angry Man into her garden would have helped this dog in any way at all. Either the dog was amenable and would come to him through the hole in the boundary or was not and would have run back through it if approached from the garden. OP was happy for him to contain the dog by staying at the hole it went through. If the exit was not blocked and the dog spooked from within the garden it may well have run out onto the road there and then.

So OP was supposed to allow this random man into and through her house to the garden, lock him in it until the warden showed up (who didn’t btw) while she was working with a dog that neither of them know is safe to approach and would likely run right out the way it came before the dog warden showed up unless the man got between the gap or got ahold of it?

Can only imagine the police report if the dog attacked him and OP having to explain why she locked him in her garden.

Sad the dog escaped , even more sad it got injured. You could have helped in this situation but you decided to take the moral high ground .

if this person isn’t the owner .., how the heck do they know & why taking responsibility for this vigilante justice.
I think they are unhinged. They could have taken dog home if they cared so much.

I might ask them to please make a police report so it can be handled “properly” (knowing full well it has nothing to do with me.)

OMG
You think it's acceptable that this man should be aggressive towards OP?

Well, I 've heard everything now!

And, as if OP could concentrate on work with a stranger in her garden for 2 hours or more.
Are you real?

Who?
The man and the dog? 😆

It seems slightly (massively 🤔) odd that this random man knows so much about this dog. Firstly, he knows where it runs to. Secondly, he knows it ran off again and the consequences. Is his life's work just to follow it around? Like Biff and Chip's nosy neighbour ... always watching 👀

Nobody said OP couldn't look to see whether the dog was there. The reason it's been pointed out that she's not said it was there is because so many people have assumed. The fact that so many of you have uncritically swallowed that is quite telling in itself. It's a good example of why stuff about animals in distress is used to reel people in.

Also you have no idea whether there was a local animal rescue group with someone available to help. And in any case, no guarantee that would've materially changed the situation. Could've just been another strange bloke expecting to enter OPs home, interrupt her work and refusing to wait outside for the dog.

On the point of OPs boss, can you just imagine the thread on here if someone had sodded off mid meeting or phone call to investigate claims about a random dog? I can see the aibu now!

@Petitchat all three of them then

@Petitchat I also never said his behaviour was acceptable, but that doesn't mean I think OP's attitude was great either. Nobody comes out of this covered in glory - the dogs owners, the OP, or the guy trying to help that probably got caught up trying to do the right thing 🤷‍♀️

No you are not responsible, the onus is on the idiot who let the dog out of the house in the first place.

The neighbour who was banging and shouting their big mouth off at your front door is guilty of anti social behaviour, so if anything like this happens again, report the loser to your local council because they need to be tied to a dog lead wrapped around a lamp post for their idiotic behavior.

I understand councils do not use lamp posts as punishments for idiots, they are given warnings then fined up to their eyeballs instead.

We have 2 dogs that regularly escape into our garden (and other neighbouring ones) and run around together. They don't look remotely scared, in fact they look like they are thoroughly enjoying themselves! The first time I saw them I went to check on them, tried to work out which property they came from, who they belonged to etc. They are very cute.

But it happens every few weeks so quite clearly the owners cba to properly dog-proof their garden, and seem quite oblivious to the fact that from our garden they can get into our nextdoor neighbour's and from there onto the road (roads round here are relatively quiet but are on a bus route). Lovely though the dogs are, I'm afraid we have decided that we are not going to take more responsibility for their care than the people who actually own them do.

I work from home. If someone came banging on my door demanding to know why I wasn't helping with the dogs, they would get a two-word answer – I'm busy.

Read the OP. The only route for the man to get into OPs garden is through her house. She said no to letting an unknown man into her house when she was there alone. Which is sensible.

The number of posters who will apparently let an unknown man into their house if he says he needs to is insane to me.

I totally fail to see how letting Random Angry Man into her garden would have helped this dog in any way at all. Either the dog was amenable and would come to him through the hole in the boundary or was not and would have run back through it if approached from the garden. OP was happy for him to contain the dog by staying at the hole it went through. If the exit was not blocked and the dog spooked from within the garden it may well have run out onto the road there and then.

Yes I don't understand the logistics really. I assume the OP had a house with a garden with no gate but temporarily a hole in the hedge, and then a front and back door. Presumably random ranty man left the garden with no gate but a hedge hole, and walked round the house (leaving hole unattended so that dog was free to escape) to knock on the OP's door asking to go through her house to get to the garden. Why he didn't just wait at the hole to stop the dog escaping, well who knows. Frankly he sounds thick as pig shit and I think he just wants someone to blame for his own stupidity.

No one suggested living in abject fear of every single male person you come across, did they?But if you'll let any man into your house who says he needs to to rescue a dog, you are naive at best.

Yes, one hopes they don't have any responsibility for children. Imagine teaching your DC this.

i haven’t read the full thread but shocked by the number of people who think OP was unreasonable.

YANBU

its just a DOG!!!

I think many criminals are opportunists. I don't know if this man was either a criminal and/or an opportunist, but I'd not be inviting him to walk through my house while I was on my own.

If he was so concerned about the dog he could have waited by the hole the dog used to get into the garden - which is the point here, there was a perfectly sensible alternative course of action, but the only one he was interested in involved going through OPs house and waiting in her garden.

Ermmmm no, she chose to not allow a random angry man into her home and workspace.

I fail to see why any rational person would think @notmyproblems was unreasonable in not allowing a stranger, full of rage into her home.

I can’t see how letting this man into her garden two weeks ago would have stopped the dog getting injured yesterday.

Some of the PP are bonkers

Just to add that I wfh and cannot even answer the door during a meeting. I have to ignore it. I cannot leave my desk for even a toilet or drink break during certain hours. It’s because I work in a legal capacity and just cannot be dropping important meetings that have taken months to set up and gather people for, just because some stranger is at my door wanting access to the garden.

pre covid and home working, OP may not even have been at home.

and we aren’t denying the dog was there. I’m asking for proof the dog was run over which was the cause for the stranger to come along a second time. Dog may well have been in the garden. He wasn’t run over in the garden was he.

man waits by the gap and problem solved. But instead he makes it a woman’s fault, and so do all the other posters saying OP should have done this or that.

Me too, I'm really glad not to live in abject fear of every single male person.

I'm also glad I don't let strangers in my house.