[Perna]

I live in town houses, am the "newest" to move in and am surrounded by people with dogs. I have cats. Anyway, the next door neighbors whom we're okay friendly with have 3 dogs and they recently "paved" their little back yard so their dogs have nowhere pleasant to poop. The larger one has started/continued to jump their little three foot high fence and wanders through our yard (all nice green lawn) and then through the other side neighbor's rail fence and around to the front of the townhouses/street (but we're on a cul de sac at the end of an island, surrounded by water, and everyone "knows" this dog so it's not in any danger) and then finally wanders back around to the back, barks and is let in. . . eventually. Anyway, to make a long story short, large poop in our yard, smack dab in the middle of where we'd walk to get to our deck. The "yard" is only 10 x 20, not that big but having someone else's dog's doo I don't know what to do about it. I don't want to get "nasty" with the neighbors, don't have any faith they'd "watch" the dog better (since they never walk it and don't watch it now) and I'm trying to think of some way to curtail the dog being interested in our nice "comfy" yard as a toilet since her own is all rock/brick. Come winter and snow/ice/cold I can't imagine she'll even think of staying in her own space.

So, I'm angry and resigned. I picked up the poo with toilet tissue and flushed it in my own toilet; the neighbor on the other side has dogs and a huge yard (he's end of group) and I imagine most of the poo is happening in his yard. Do I just clean up occasionally; I don't dislike the dog/neighbors but feel resentful (as I should) but can't think of a "pleasant" way to resolve it. Is there some sort of "don't poop on me" spray/chemical that might get the dog to quit coming into/lingering in the yard? I let my cats out occasionally and don't want them bothered by an unpleasant place. Maybe I should just wait until Spring and plant thorny bushes there near the fence :-) But there's a gate I'd have to leave free as it's the only way people can get to the back yards here since we're on the water, through the gates and yards of our neighbors. So the dog would manage to jump that part; guess I could put a high "arch"-type offset trellis a foot from their fence so the gap between jumping and hitting the correct spot would be too difficult? Doing all that would be kind of "obvious". I hate conflict of the sort where you look "stupid" and the other people say something like, "if you'd only told us. . . " when it's obviously they're not paying attention in the first place and don't care/want to bother.

[January]

Hi Perna,

This may or may not be the best way to handle it, but I have some ideas.

If you have a video camera, film the dog using your yard. Nicely tell the neighbor that his dog has been using your yard. If he protests, show him the film.

If that doesn't end it, take a shovel and deposit their dog's presents to you over into their nice little paved yard.

I hope this helps.

Jan

[DavidStrong]

Talking to your neighbors really would be the best solution. I recently went through a similar situation. I talked to them and within two days the problem was solved. You can try sprays, bushes, whatever, but dogs have a way of getting around all of that. Like you said, it's probably just that they are just not paying attention. Likely, all you need to do is say something to get them to pull their heads out of their ***.