Animal Advice, this could be serious and I don't know what to do

[Seshat]

Sadly, I agree with Flying Gripe.

The neighbours need to have their neglect on record.
The dog needs to be in a better place, whether that be a foster home to learn to be loving again, or Beyond the Rainbow Bridge.
Everyone else needs to be safe from the dog.

[Aethian]

So what did you end up doing?

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Should you wait and see what happens?

Like what, tomorrow he has you on the ground and goes for your throat? You have been physically attacked by an aggressive animal, at what point do you draw the line if not that point?

Did the dog break the skin? Does he have his shots up to date? Have you been to the doctor?

Have you talked to you neighbor?

There should have been freaking police cars on your front lawn at that point. Vicious dogs have killed GROWN ASS ADULTS. Don't play around with this, this is some extremely serious stuff.

[flutes_and_fabric]

So an update on what happened.

I called animal control and reported the bite. I made it clear that this is the first time the dog has been aggressive and that there could be health issues or neglect involved. The family was not there for me to talk to, and I was too afraid to go back into their yard so I left a note in their mailbox asking them to please call me.

The neighbor got very angry and said I was making it up, blah blah blah. Animal control came, had a talk with the neighbor, and ordered him to get a trainer for the dog and for them, to teach them the proper way to care for the dog.

I did notice over the next few weeks that the dog didn't seem to be outside as much, so I thought maybe they were being better with him.

Negative. They changed the radius of the electric fence so he could no longer come near our house, meaning his previously limited space is now even more limited. The neighbors on the other side actually put up a fence because they didn't feel comfortable.

One day I heard their son crying that the dog had bitten him, but the mom said he was only playing. Really, after having animal control called? I don't know what they were thinking adopting this poor dog since no one in the household obviously cares about it.

Well two days ago I came home and there was an ambulance in their driveway and people standing around and whatnot. I crawled into the back of my car where the windows are tinted to watch the show.

Yes, I know I'm the snooping neighbor but I wanted to know what was going on. Apparently they were having a cookout and the dog jumped up on a friend and tore his shirt and some skin off, then bit someone else.

Today I mentioned not seeing the dog around as much and my neighbor said that they had sent him to a relative that owned a farm which I'm pretty sure means "he was put down and I'm too guilty to let you know cause you were right and I didn't take the situation seriously."

Poor pooch.

[Seshat]

....


I HOPE they either gave him to someone who can handle him, or had him put down.

There are people who just go somewhere vaguely rural and shove the animal out the car door.

[BookstoreEscapee]

Poor doggy. This is sad. I do hope they are telling the truth, and the dog is somewhere actually being cared for. Even if they did put him down, I hope it was that and not that they abandoned him somewhere.

[flutes_and_fabric]

....


I HOPE they either gave him to someone who can handle him, or had him put down.

There are people who just go somewhere vaguely rural and shove the animal out the car door.

I can't believe when people abandon animals. I really hope that didn't happen. Actually, that's how we got one of our dogs. We live in a semi rural area and I was helping out at the farm when a puppy walked by. We took him in, put up found signs. Eventually a litter of dead puppies was found in a trailer down the road. The owner had just left them. That's how we got our Sammy. Actually, he became a present for my grandma after her dog died. He was still little at that point and we put a bow on him and it was adorable. Well when she was diagnosed with cancer he was just too much for her to take care of, so we've been babysitting him for 7 years. I think it's safe to say he's home.

[Solumina]

People really should be required to go through some basic training when they get a pet (maybe with an option for testing out) and a waiting period before you can actually take them home to prevent impulse buying and to make sure that people have everything that they need before they take the animal home.

The shelter that my mother got her scruffy little mutt from had one of the most comprehensive set ups that I think I have ever seen. You went in and before they even let you see any of the animals they checked to see what you could reasonably handle (since they didn't want people to fall in love with animals that they really couldn't accommodate) and talk to you to find out what you know and what you need to be taught about pets. Once you think you have found the one for you then you get to take them into a play room and/or the big fenced in yard so that you can get some real interaction. After that you have to wait at least two weeks before you can take the animal home and in that two weeks everyone who will be living in the home must come and talk with the lovely people there and log at least 30 minutes of interaction time with the animal (I think this applies to pets as well) and someone from the shelter will set up a time to inspect your home to make sure that everything is set up for your new pet (my mom had to wait longer since she had a week long trip at the end of the month and neither she nor the shelter would have wanted her to take him home just to run off like that but she did see him every weekend and sometimes would go in after work during the week). Somewhere between one and two months after you take your new pet home someone from the shelter will come by to make sure that everything is going well and to help train you in how to deal with any problems that you may be having. At that point they will either decide that you have a good home for the animal, that you need a follow up visit and/or training, or that the pet needed to return to the shelter with them. Unfortunately this is far too expensive and time consuming to be feasible for most shelters.

[MaggieTheCat]

Animal abandonment really makes my stomach churn. Our baby kitten Pluto was abandoned before we got him. A friend of my husband's found him on a very rural road with no tags, no mama cat, and no people around. He was perfectly healthy (no fleas, no worms, no infections of any kind, not malnourished aside from being starving by the time we got him home that night) so we're about 99.9% certain that he was dropped in the middle of the road by someone earlier that same day. Fortunately for us, and him, he fits in really well in our household. I really hope the neighbor dog didn't get dropped somewhere.