Please control your dogs!

January 16, 2013
I know you report about more important things than this, but I need to put this out there. Earlier this week, the neighbor's loose dogs attacked my chickens and killed two of them.

Last year his dog on the loose came in to our yard and slaughtered all of our chickens (then, because he still let it run loose, it went to the highway and was hit and killed).

We called the police and they gave him a warning. I didn't bother calling anyone this time as we know nothing will come of it. This neighbor works for the city in the public works department, that might have something to do with nothing coming of it.

He did pay for the chickens this time and again he asked how many. At the time I wasn't sure, but it ended up being two, the others hid and I caught the dogs right away. There was no apology this time just a resigned "how many?"

To those of us who have chickens, it's not just the loss of the birds, it's the growing them to an age where they finally start laying, then the days after when the other chickens won't lay because of them being traumatized. Or like last time when the chickens were killed and we had to start all over with young ones that didn't lay yet.

Please, could you make clear to all who live in rural areas or live near neighbors that have chickens or other livestock that you must fence or contain your dogs?

Their inability to be responsible dog owners makes all the rest of us to have to work harder to keep ours safe. We have to rebuild the fence your dogs tore down to get to our chickens, we have to clean up the mess, we have to replace the chickens, and now we're buying more fencing to reinforce it to keep big dogs from tearing it down. Not to mention the loss of our egg producers.

Thank you so much, neighbors, for being one of the worst pet owners we know.
Dana Kunz
Bonners Ferry