Replies to '12/24 Nasty Neighbors'

I understand the nasty neighbor situation quite handily. A year ago my neighbors Pit Bull and Rottweiler killed my little dog Jake, a small Lhasa Apso.

We live out in the country and there arent any laws regarding animals being kept up in a fenced area or on a leash. I tried to keep Jake in the house but from time to time he would get away from me. On the particular day of his death he had been out of my sight for approximately 10 minutes. I kept calling for him but he wouldnt come. After about 30 minutes missing Jake, one of my neighbors sons called to let me know that the Pit and the Rottweiler had Jake in the ditch besides my house mauling him. I went off with a pistol for self protection against the two dogs in order to find Jake, but it was too late, they had done the deed already. I fired a warning shot at the two dogs to stop them from coming at me. My neighbor who owned the dogs came out and started yelling at me and here I am the one with the dead dog, go figure. Anyway long story short my husband told them that if they valued their animals that they had better keep them fenced as we were tired of their dogs viciously attacking our animals and intimidating us. This had been going on forever not all damage done was ascribed to this pair of dogs, however they did cause a great amount of fear and angst. These dogs were killing another neighbors cats, so much so the folks who owned the cats moved away they couldn't take it any more. They would always get the same sort of dog and allow them to run free over the neighborhood. Well they kept the dogs up for a few days. The Rottweiler was loose and ran at my husband, my 2-year-old grandson and myself on our property. This was the final straw my husband got the shotgun and killed the dog immediately. Upon this happening, the owner of the dog our esteemed neighbor went ballistic. Threatening my husband with bodily harm and calling him everything but a white man. I called the sheriffs department to get the idiot to go away at least he was smart enough not to set a foot on our property and has not yet. But we cant go out in our yard to do anything without them giving us the middle finger salute nor can we drive down the road without it happening. Here of late we have been finding golf balls aimed at our barn and travel trailer, so far no sign of damage good thing that they apparently arent any good at golf or they would probably be breaking out windows or denting the barn it has metal siding. I am concerned that at some point in the near future the neighbor who is probably 30 years old and looks to be well over 6', 200 lbs., will physically confront my husband who is a 60-year-old. At times we talk about moving because of all of this nonsense, but I refuse to allow these folks to take any more away from me than they already did when they took my little buddy away. It is hard on my husband because he gets so angry, I think this allows them to win and I try to convince him to ignore them, but it doesnt work to well.