keeping a dog (and kids) out of my yard

I read this thread with MUCh interest! DH and I have been putting with Festus, the Yorkie next door for years. He weighs about 2 lbs. and causes way too many problems in out yard. My neighbors let out to "potty" and he comes over to our yard or worse he comes down the driveway and lifts his leg on all my potted plants, my steps and anything else he can pee on. The owners will litteraly stand in my driveway, 3 feet from my door and watch him do this!! I had rolled up my rugs and put them on my side porch while we polished the woodfloors- when I went to bring them in I discovered they had been peed on- had to go rent a carpet cleaner. I really hate that Festus...

Man! Makes me mad for you! People really make me mad! You know. If a person has a dog that's fine. But why should the rest of us suffer because they want a dog? Keep it in your own *@!& yard and if you can't get it to stop barking put a muzzle on it! If I were you I would file a complaint on them. I assume your city has a leash law. If you file a complaint, the police have to follow up. They have to go have a word with your neighbor. Keep filing complaints. Eventually the city will fine them. Then they will keep their dog in their own yard.

When they come over and stand and watch the dog do it's business on your plants, etc; walk out of the house with a camera or camcorder. If asked why you are doing that just say "evidence", and go back in. LOL!

Evidence- I love it. I know that this is not really Festus' fault- it is his owners fault. I own 4 dogs and they are in my backyard, 6ft. privacy fence and they are well behaved. I am tempted to take the Great Pyranese into their yard and let her potty, but I would never- I am too respectful of boundaries.

Irresponsible pet owners make it difficult for everyone. I live in a great neighborhood and almost without fail, people brig plastic bags with them to take care of the problem. It may be just a situation of not them not recognizing the problems their dog is causing. I'd try nice first and then stronger if the problem isn't eliminated. At all pet stores you can now find poop bags and a small dispenser that attaches to the leash. They look like a little fire hydrant or doggy purse and the roll fits inside. They feed out one at a time and tear off at perforated end of each bag. They are very inexpensive. If you picked one of those up and gave it to the neighbors, saying nicely that maybe they weren't aware that Festus is causing a problem with your plants and other items on your porch and in your yard, so you wanted to give them this so it'd be handy when he did his business. If that doesn't work, forget nice and tell them that some of your gardening chemicals are poisonous to animals and they should keep him out of the yard for his safety. If that doesn't work, tell them you're a witch and looking for a small animal to sacrifice at the next solstice! :) Good luck.

Crow

LOL Crow ~ but why wait til the solstice???

Pooper scooping won't help with the urinating on things. And can't help but feel that anyone who stands in your driveway and watches their dog do their business doesn't know how offensive and destructive that is. Some people just don't care whether they destroy your stuff or not. My next door neighbor let his bird dogs loose into my yard while he cleaned out their pens. The big one stopped to take a dump in my backyard. When I stepped out on the porch and told him I didn't want to mow over dog poop, he said,"What! Your F---n crazy!!" And the fight was on. He litterally shook his shovel at me like he was going to hit me.

What is wrong with these rude people; where do they come from? I don't remember people acting like this 'way back when'. OK maybe a few crazies, but it seems like they are just multiplying. I guess courtesy is just going out the door.... Or maybe I was just too young then... Have people always just let their animals roam and poop wherever they want? Or are we just less tolerant of it? Regardless, it just amazes me that people do not take more responsibility for their animals and have more respect for other people and their property.

I think it is a combination of everything listed. But most importantly, people have become very selfish. I personally feel if a child is raised to have some manners and taught to be more in tune with how what they do affects those around them, they will become grown ups that do the same. We had dogs when I was a kid. We let them out to do their business, but we kept them in our own yard. And they didn't stay outside barking at the neighbors who were in their own yards minding their own business and keeping them up all night. I know I come off as being a real b--- about this matter, but I have had to deal with this for years. Ever since that creep moved in next door to me. Honestly. I used to hate confrontation and people being mad at me. But I realized that they weren't at all concerned whether I was mad at them or not, and if I didn't take up for myself no one was going to do it for me. Got tired of being run over. You just have to draw boundries with people and stick to it.

Well maybe that's what it is; my mom would have beat my butt if I had been so disrespectful and I learned real quick to be courteous and respectful of others. I think people are being raised very differently now. Once my children were being really terrible in a Hobby Lobby and had received several warnings including that if they continued I would spank them when we left the store. They were 4 and 5 yrs old at the time. Well they continued to misbehave and I told them that as soon as we walked out of the store they were getting a 'pop'. A lady behind us in line witnessed how horrible they were behaving, to my embarrassment. So after we walked out the door, I pulled them aside and gave each of them a swat to the behind. Some lady walking up to the store with her daughter (~12-13yr old) began chastizing me for beating up on children (yeah, one swap to the bottom) and that I should be ashamed of myself for hitting someone smaller than me (I'm 5'1''). So I told her she should mind her own business and thought that would be the end of it until her young daughter yelled "Shut up you B----!". I was shocked and told that lady that maybe she should have tried spanking her daughter so that she would have learned some manners and respect for her elders." The lady that was behind me in the store, who had witnessed my children's behavior, came out about this time and saw this lovely confrontation and told me that lady was crazy and not to worry about it and she spanked her children too. I know some people think spanking is wrong but I guarantee you my now 14 and 12 year olds would NEVER yell "Shut up you B----" at an adult or anyone for that matter. My parents spanked me when I deserved it and I didn't turn out disfunctional or wierd. But I think children are given an aweful lot of room to misbehave with no consequences now, and maybe that is one of the reasons people think they can just do whatever they want without regard for how it affects others.

You go girl! My mother spanked us also and I think I am pretty normal. I also spanked my children (I carried one of those paddles in my purse, you know the kind that has the elastic string and a rubber ball at the end?), and took them to church. The boys are now 27 and 20, say please and thank you, never been on drugs, love children, respect the elderly, and one is a policeman and the other a dispatcher until he turns 21 then he will become a policeman. I so believe the troubles with the world all begin in the home. And you are 1/2" taller than me! Ha! ha!

Well, too bad we can't all just spank our neighbors when they behave like brats. :)

At least without getting caught! Ha! ha!

A long time ago (the 70's) I was still living at home and my parents went on vacation and left me to take care of the house. My brother was gone in the Navy and my sister was married and moved to another town. I was going to school full time, working part time, taking care of my two horses, and also taking care of someone else's calves. I addition I was taking care of our two dogs and cat. I was seventeen. An elderly lady up the street used to walk her Pug by our house (on a leash) every morning and afternoon and he would routinely do his duty (much to my dad's distress) on our front lawn. My dad loved his front lawn. Pug lady was a very prim and propper lady and one of my mom's friends. They went to coffee clatches (whatever those were) together. We lived in a small town and no one confronted anyone. They just quietly held grundges and grumbles.

I had been instructed to go out every day and pick up after this dog and dispose of the doo-doo. So, every day I went out first thing in the morning (around 5:00 AM) and shoveled up the darling Pug's doo and put it in a box lined with a trash liner. At the end of the week I sealed the box and mailed it to the Pug's owner. This was not a premeditated act. It just came to me in a blinding flash of a seventeen year-old frustration and (what I thought) brilliance.

Now let's keep in mind that I was not my mother's favorite child. I was a tom-boy who loved horses, dogs, sports, and even though I liked to sew and cook I had no plans to become a housewife. I was going to college (not nursing school or secretarial school) and would have a career. Neither my mother or her Pug loving friend approved of these ideas. Tut-tut. And believe me, I was taught manners and spanked. My mother had a book by Emily Post and I had to read many passages, often!

When Pug lady called on Monday to tell my dad about my awful behaviour I thought I would really be in for it. He actually started laughing hysterically and eventually hung up on her. My mother never said a word. Believe me, I would never have heard the end of it if Mom thought for one minute that I had done anything outside the realm of proper behaviour. She never said one word to me about it. I still hear about how I shot slingshot holes through one of the neighbor's frozen longjohns and the humiliation of having a little girl who ran with the boys, had a slingshot, and spent way too much time in a stable--but never one word about mailing dog doo to Pug lady. That pug never did pooh in our yard again.

Now I'm definitely NOT telling you to mail dog pooh to your neighbor. I think it might be illegal now. The statute of limitations has run out on my "dirty" deed. I'm only telling this to let you know that once, a long time ago, someone once got a neighbor to stop taking advantage of a situation and we all went on quietly with our lives without further incident. And maybe you might get a chuckle out of it like my dad did. But DON'T do this. People call the police about things like mailing dog pooh nowadays.

Gosh, it doesn't seem right that one should call the 70's the old days does it?

Terri, I loved your story. It sounds just like somthing I would do. I've always been the "wayward" child too. My most dastardly deed was to wash all my ex-husbands underwear and bed sheets with a few handfulls of fiberglass insulation just before I left him. I decided on this path of vengeance when one of the neighbors kids asked me to put on my new wig so they could see. I said I didn't have one and they innocently asked why my hair was different during the past few weeks when hubby and I "came home for lunch". I cleaned the house, put "clean" sheets on the bed, folded all the laundry and put it away and left. It took him forever to figure out what was causing his "rash". Finally a dermatologist found slivers of fiberglass in his skin and asked if he'd been insulating the attic in the buff. He finally put it all together when the washer's drain line clogged and had bits of pink insulation in it. I hope the woman he was cheating with got a rump full too. That'd only be fair, huh? Ahh, the good old days of the 70's!

Sorry, this is kind of off topic, but I figured it'd be good for a laugh for y'all and yes, I really did that.

Crow

Stories of vengeance - love them! :)

OMG!!! You guys are just too funny!! I wish I could think of these things myself!! Closest I get is thinking about gathering the poop and dumping it in their yard! I LOVE the mail idea. Since my son is a policeman, I am going to ask him it is illegal now. Tee! hee! hee! Of course, that would require figuring out WHICH *^%!* dog is doing it. I did actually catch a huge blue healer digging in my east flower bed last summer. Belongs to a house behind me and two houses down. And I LOVE the insulation story.

Hehe!

NOT saying anyone should take revenge. Revenge is BAD!

Chuckling is GOOD!

Terri, mailing the dog poop is on you, but thanks for sharing because I sure did get a big laugh out of that story! So I'm just chuckling; no plans to reap revenge - at the moment anyway. :)

ROFL ~ not revenge! It's called getting even! Love both those incidents.

Well, I did poop-scoop and put the stuff back in the neighbor's yard.. Why should I sully *my* trash can with that stuff, even in a plastic bag? I will continue to do so.
One time in another place, a neighbor let his dog poop on the common driveway. Disgusting. So another neighbor scooped it up one time and put in a paper bag and left it at the offender's front door. This was effective for a short while, but the lack of class rose to the fore again. Eventually the offending neighbor moved out.
I don't know if our neighbor dog is peeing over here.

Sounds more like what we used to call "poetic justice"! Personnaly, I like the phrase "what goes around, comes around", and "if you give a man enough rope, he will hang himself". Just sit back and watch! It will happen.

I think of it more as driving home a point.

Wow, I think every woman who is married to a cheating man should use the insulation idea! I bet that would make him keep his zipper shut! Crow that was too funny! I don't know what made you think of it, but it was not serious harm to him, but it sure was painful. I have had a few friends in the years gone by that would have loved to have thought of that one.

The doggie pooh in the mail was brilliant! You were only returning what had been left at your house by the sweet little old lady's dog. You didn't want to keep what wasn't yours! What an honest child you were! LOL

I needed these laughs today.

I was actually saving it so my dad could see that I did it. The mail part was an absolute impulse. If I had stopped to think about it I would never have done it. Now that I am a surviving mother of teenagers I know that seventeen year olds don't stop to think about too much.

I have one that's 20 now and he's still not there. By the way. GO 70'S!!!!! I am now officially my mother. When I was small I used to have to watch her listening to 50's music and talk about old times with her friends. Now I use my launchcast radio and listen to 1970's music while walking on my treadmill and using my total gym. Not that this has anything to do at all with my neighbors crapping barking dogs.

Crow, your story reminds me somewhat of a friend I had, with a cheating hubby, who fixed his wagon, but I think yours is really the tops! My friend was married to an attorney who apparently couldn't keep his trousers zipped. One day he was away on business (yeah right) and she had a garage sale/estate sale and sold EVERYTHING he owned down to his underwear. I think she just gave alot of it away just to make it all disappear. He came home to a completely empty house. But I think the maliciousness of the insulation was a great touch. Must have taken awhile for him to shed enough skin cells to be free of that stuff. Ouch! - Just think of all the places that stuff could have gotten stuck! :)

getting in late on this conversation but my Grandmammy would go out into the fields and pull up a bunch of bull nettle and outline her yard and throw it around in her flower beds to deter dogs and chickens.It worked extremely well. And let me tell you, if you've never been stung by bull nettle you haven't lived. Worse than childbirth. Natural, no cost, and effective on all species, LOL!

Where do you find this bull nettle?

Can you give me the scientific/latin whatever name so I can look it up? That sounds useful. Thanks.

I am finding it several places listed as Texas Bull Nettle or Cnidoscolus, texanus as shown here:

http://www.baylor.edu/lakewaco_wetlands/index.php?id=34733

It generally grows in patches or as lone plants in pastureland or woods, it likes alot of hot sun.

The Ebay auction shown below lists a dad gummed good description of the pain, however, it leaves out the fact that the pain lasts over 30 minutes and gets worse over the 30 minutes. Your flesh also angrily raises where it's hit. It is absolutely, positively, the worst pain alive. Similar to a jellyfish sting. And yes, pouring pee on it will help ☺I haven't got into it since I was a child until last year when my ankle hit one at our family cemetary in the woods.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Bull-Nettle-Plant-10-Seeds-Perennial-(CrystalsGrove)
_W0QQitemZ400024973331QQcmdZViewItemQQimsxZ20090116?IMSfp=TL090116116001r5592

I'm sorry, this link is so long DG won't let me use it unless you copy and paste all of the bold link...






This message was edited Jan 19, 2009 9:08 PM

I have never been stung by one but I have dung a few out of the ground. I've dung holes 5 ft deep and not gotten all of the root.

One neat thing about Bull Nettle is the flowers, they are beautiful, they look like Stephanotis and have a wonderful scent, the seeds are also edible, so it does have some redeeming qualities.
Josephine.

Would be GREAT for the neighbors dogs, but it sure would make it dangerous to work in the flower bed.

Bubba I was too young to remember all, but my grandmother used them all her life. Probably a "handed down" thing. I guess she was very careful. They had a LOT of poultry running around yet she had a lovely yard full of flowerbeds so I guess it really worked. Here is the Ebay description so you won't have to try and make that huge link work...

Think I'll check out ebay!

I thought this might be the plant that has caused me some real pain (burning, red welts, almost instantly lasting for a long time followed by itching for a day or two) but it doesn't really look like it. The leaves and stems of the plant I have a bad reaction to are covered with very fine hairs and almost look like they have an oily sheen. They are hard to get rid of as they have a long root. But when I looked at pictures of this Texas Bull Nettle, the leaves don't look quite the same. Also, I never saw any flowers on the one I have a reaction to so can't compare them. But if the Texas Bull Nettle hurts anything like the one I've come across, I think it would make a great deterent to trespassers! I saw where someone said they used this type of plant around their windows to keep burglars away.

Decklife - this one might be a great plant to grow below/between those roses. I'll bet if Fido steps on this a couple of times, he won't be back.

You know, we haven't heard from decklife in a while. I hope he's still watching!

Hey,
Decklife is a she and I posted something only yesterday. At the moment I am not doing anything about the situation except scooping poop up when I see it. I don't think bull nettle is for me because I tend to be pretty sensitive. Have enough trouble with sticky burrs! Hey now there's an idea.
Meanwhile, I received a Spray-n-Grow catalog and it has something called Liquid Fence, which is said to create an "invisible barrier" with plant oils including citronella, garlic and cinnamon, for keeping others' pets out. Has anybody tried this?

I haven't, but let us know how it works.