So I'm going to bounce this off the forum for perspective before i knock on their door.
I live in a neighborhood that is semi-rural, it is a private dirt road, and most of the houses are on 2 or 3 acre lots. My house is at the end of a long driveway, a couple hundred feet. Neighbors across the street have a dog that they let out into their yard unsupervised. It wanders out into the road often, and howls at the passing cars, i'm sure they must hear it. It's sort of a "fraidy dog" that seems/is more likely to run when confronted, than bite someone.
This dog has a habit of crapping on my paved driveway a couple times a week. I'm getting kind of irked, but have not said anything to the neighbors yet. Don't care for getting poo stuck in my clown cars' tires, nor seeing it . A few times i have shoveled it up and tossed it onto their paved driveway apron. Any of the other neighbors with dogs keep them behind fences, and I'm pretty sure it is not some other vagabond stray dog, continously returning to crap in my driveway.
We've seen it in the act several times, but on those occasions I had somewhere to be, so other than yelling at the dog [ so it retreated to their yard] I didn't make the time to talk with the neighor.
Am getting kind of fed up, at the dog howling at us as we come down our driveway, often while dog is standing on our driveway, as it backs into the street. Plus the shit issue.
I'd really rather Not involve "animal control" + town enforcement. My wife has talked friendly + briefly to them in the past, and I've waved if we see them , but we haven't had any substantive conversations. I don't think they are going to stop letting the dog out into the yard by itself , based on the howling at the passing cars while its in the road, repeatedly.
My thoughts
1. - Knock on door this weekend, explain issue, ask them to keep dog in their own yard + supervised, or fence part of their yard.
2. - Wait till the dog is howling at us as we come down the driveway, immediately pull into their yard as it retreats, and then choice # 1 [ may take a few days for my schedule and the dogs bowel movement to coincide - haha ]
3.- Ask them to check my driveway each day, and clean it themselves, it's their mess, right ?
4. - If ideas 1,2 or 3 don't work, or they are belligerent, wait halfway up the driveway with my slingshot, and beam it with a marble [ although i generally like animals, we have pets, and causing animals pain seems wrong, - but is often effective. ]
5. - If ideas 1,2 or 3 don't work , call animal control , but i probably can't catch the dog without lasso-ing it, so its likely to retreat back into their yard, since animal control HQ is 30minutes + away. And I can't see as they'll look kindly on having a visit from the county.
