Who's Problem is This?

I have three neighbors fairly close to my property. One is the Clover Valley Riding Center including their stable managers who live on property in their own house. The Stable Managers home is quite close to ours, but above our house on the bank slope. The other neighbors are the one's I've written about before with the two young boys. Then we have a new neighbor, just bought the property bordering ours on the West side of our land. I'm really liking her, she's an Equine Vet and just graduated from WSU. She's my age, nice and very friendly. She has two horses and a dog. All nice animals.

I have had some issues with two of my neighbors in the recent past. Some of which are on-going. First of all my neighbors with the two boys let their kids out all day unsupervised, even to the smallest degree. Sometimes I don't even think they have a parent at home. They decided our driveway is the very best place to ride their bikes. Normally this would not be a problem at all, however, I do dog training with my own dogs (and am getting new clients right now) in my yard everyday. Not only are these kids too young to be polite about their riding habits, but Foenix does not like either kid. They've approached him with sticks and yelled at him, teasing him from a tree on many occasions. His dislike is warranted. So now I have to deal with the two boys riding up my long drive way on their bikes, interrupting on my dog training at all times of the day. Its a real nuisance to say the least. Yes, we've asked the kids nicely not to come all the way up our drive. Unfortunately the younger one (nearly four years old) is too young to really understand our reasoning or remember it for too long. Their parents are hardly ever home or visible for us to talk to. At one point I had to write out my concerns a couple years ago and pin it to a tree in their yard--that's how hard it is to get to speak to them at times.

I don't dislike these kids, they are two polite and sweet kids. But I think that we should be able to have our dogs out and generally do our thing on our property without the intrusion. They also like to leave their bikes on our drive, I have to fetch them all the time.

This brings me to my next, and more pressing, issue. D-O-G-S!!! The nearby barn has many clients. Those many clients all seem to have one or more dogs that they allow to run lose all over the barn property and incidentaly run our property as well. I'm getting really sick of all the strange dogs running up to our house (sometimes even on our porch). A couple days ago I was out with Hannah. She was on a blanket in the shade and Foenix, Zeke and I were playing and just enjoying the nice whether. I was alternately playing with Hannah and throwing a ball for the dogs, plus doing some training (at my house every play session also involves training of some sort). We were all having a great time until...I was about 10 feet from Hannah and had just thrown the ball for Foenix when I turned around and saw a large, aggressively moving dog coming up on me and Zeke. The dog rushed Zeke (only a 10# dog) and challenged him in his own yard.

What's more? I nearly had heart failure when I realized, very thankfully, that he had chosen to go after Zeke and not Hannah. I was livid and would have hurt this dog had he not ran away when I moved towards him. I just reacted, not really thinking and wanted the dog, well, to be honest to be dead. It scared me so badly that Hannah could have been attacked and damaged before I could have even intervened. My "Mother instinct" was on high alert. Needless to say that ruined my time outside. And now I constantly feel the need to be looking over my shoulder for this to happen again.

I think, as the laws say in my state, that I'm entitled to be able to enjoy my own yard without frequent threat from the neighbor's dogs. There is a leash law. I follow it. My dogs are either with me or in our securely fenced back yard. They are both trained very well and are under control 99% of the time. They have never, ever been allowed to roam about or escape our property. So why do I have to put up with this from others around me. I know that fencing our land is the only permanent solution to this problem and one we are planning on doing very soon. But in the mean time why should we put up with this?

We should be able to have our daughter out in our yard without worry that a dog is going to come in uninvited and interact with her, even on a friendly level. I DO NOT WANT STRANGE DOGS NEAR MY DAUGHTER OR MY DOGS, PERIOD.

Yesterday I went up to my other neighbors property (the horse Vet) to invited her to come and get some food, or even stay and visit if she was so inclined. She declined due to being on call. As I approached her to ask she was talking with another person who she introduced to me as a client from the barn, who rides there. The Vet asked me if I knew this dog, pointing to one in her pickup. I said "no, but it probably belongs to someone at the barn'. The barn client told me they had already asked and was not any one's dog from there. I said an off hand remark that the barn dogs are always in my yard and the barn client lady, said, in an exceedingly dismissive tone, that "that's they way barns are, everyone bring there dogs and they are not leashed." She went on to tell me, in not so many words, that I should get used to it. To chalk it up to the barn "style".

Ummmm really?? So I just have to put up with unknown temperamented dogs roaming my property and I should just deal with it because of their idea of how a barn is and does things? How would they like it if I were to call the humane societly on one, or worse have thier dog picked up by the pound for threatening my animals and child and tell them to 'deal' with it because that's my "style"? I have a feeling that would put a new spin on the situation.

The next step is to quit ranting about it and call the barn owner and speak to them about it. And believe me it will be done.