Reply to MoneySaving Dealing with a neighbors unruly dogs

"Hello,I was wondering if you minded answering a question. We are moving into a new house. I have a rescue dog that was used as a bait dog. He is a German Shep Lab mix. As a result he is terrified of big dogs. He loves little dogs and medium dogs. However, big dogs freak him out. Our new neighbors have a HUGE German Shepard that is so much bigger than my dog. They also have a pitbull, who is more bulky than large, but I know that he will freak my dog out. When my dog gets scared he growls. His tail is usually down so I know its not aggressive. In fact we were able to find out for sure based on an interaction with another dog, that it is a fear based growl, not an violent growl. My new neighbors dogs both look kind of violent. They were barking and showing thier teeth to us as we walking through our back yard. Im actually thinking of building a more secure fence because of this.Anyways, my question is, how should I best handle this? Do I just keep my dog inside and never let him in his own fenced in yard by himself? (Of course I would be just right in the door so I could peek out and listen but it only takes a split second for something to happen.) Go over and talk to the neighbor to see if maybe we could work out a schedule? Go over and talk to the neighbor to see if we could introduce the dogs to each other? Any other suggestions? Thanks so much!"

My response:
Yeah this is a really common problem and there’s a lot to cover in it too. I’ll start with your dog and then go on to your neighbor’s dog, and then go to suggestions.

First – you’re not actually doing anything wrong here. I have a dog that is also scared of big dogs and whenever she gets near them, her lips curl and she snaps at them. It is okay if she’s met the big dog before, or the big dog is a naturally calm, older dog. Otherwise, I try to keep her away from big dogs as much as possible. Your dog being a bait dog probably means that when he was a baby, he had a naturally shy personality and they used it against him. A way to work on this is to get him around calm big dogs, for instance, getting a good friend that may have a big dog and letting him interact in a good way with dogs his own height such as, letting him follow the big dog or walk beside him or something like that. If you get a good friend, eventually you can do something like doggy play dates so he can get used to bigger dogs.

Next, the neighbor’s dog has probably boredom-aggression which is a huge liability. And it doesn’t seem like the dogs have been socialized either. At my parents’ house, there are some dogs like that that just bark and claw at the fence (but once they got out and didn’t know what to do and just stood there looking at my parents’ dog). Likely these dogs are backyard dogs that never get walks or get to come in the house and just chill because they have a high energy level. So I know it’s kind of a headache for you, but likely the dogs haven’t been on a walk in ages.

The first thing I would do is reinforce the fence because you’re right, it only takes a split second for something to happen. I would reinforce the fence, perhaps consider putting chain links too, or something, I don’t know, it depends on the availability, possibility, and cost. I would also take a precaution and go ahead and talk to the dog owners about their dogs. If I’m wrong, and they bring their dogs in a lot, then I would try to work out a schedule. You could suggest their dogs meeting, but I don’t really like this idea because the dogs sound under socialized. The appropriate fence greeting is sniffing, not barking and showing teeth. I also feel as though the owners are going to say that their dogs aren’t really friendly, which takes away from the meeting idea. Also, I would do some kind of documentation of you trying to solve this problem so that if something should ever happen (such as your fence being torn down because of their dogs), you will not be liable for damages – this can go a long way because we have had to fix our fence MANY times because of bad dog owners.

Good luck :) I want an update.

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