Quote from FCXoptions:
Ok, sorry for the delay on the full story, I just got back to the computer.
So we were out of town all last week, but we have a friend who lives with us in TN currently who took care of the dog (10 month old German Shepherd) while we were gone. He is a responsible guy and did a good job of taking care of her. We don't have a dog house for our dog when she is on her runner because it is in a very shady area and we always bring her inside before it storms or anything anyways. The issue arose on Thursday while we were gone, we had a storm come in around 12-1 and our friend couldn't make it back to the house from work until about 3 to bring her inside. It is very shady back there though so hardly any rain really gets to her so it typically isn't that big of a deal.
Well apparently there was some thunder and she ran around the tree and got her runner tangled up so instead of a 30 ft lead she was on about 7ft...still enough to move around just not a ton of room. I know this because when we got home from vacation the runner was in the same position. Anyways these women call animal control and say we are neglecting our dog and that we are torturing her by leaving her out there. So animal control picks her up. That is fine, I am not that worried about it. I can understand someone getting worried about it. Luckily after my friend got back and searched around for her thinking she got off, I called animal control to check and they confirmed they had her so he went to pick her up. She stayed inside most of the weekend except to go walk her and everything. No big deal. We got home Friday and everything was fine. I also arranged to get a doghouse Sunday night.
Fast forward to last night, it was a cool clear night so I took her back out and put her on the runner with food and water for the night because she enjoys being able to run around out there vs staying inside. She regularly knocks over her water bucket when she runs around but I go check it twice a day usually at least. So I am doing some work on an outlet today in the house and my wife runs up and says there are two women in the back yard go see what the heck they are doing. So I go out there and said "can I help you?" One lady is on the phone and says, "the owner just walked out I will call you right back, standby". She introduces herself and says she is with animal welfare and says are you the owner of this dog and I said yes. And she says this animal is living in terrible conditions. Why are you torturing her by keeping her on this cable (keep in mind it is 30ft so still plenty of room to play). I start to respond and she cuts me off and says not to mention there is no shelter, water, or food out here for her! I said "first off there is plenty of room for her to run on this cable when we arent out here and second she always has water she just knocked her bucket over, and anytime we need to put her up I have a kennel for her. She is far from tortured."
Anyways we go back and forth and she says she had came out there an hour and a half before and the water bucket was knocked over then too and why would I even own a dog if I was going to be torturing it. Blah blah. I then say "You are currently trespassing on my property. Please get off my land immediately or I will call the police." My wife then comes out with my son to see what is going on (she was being very polite, just curious what the issue was) and this other woman starts going off on my wife saying she called animal control the other day because the runner was tangled up and she had dirty water in her bucket and all this. Basically they were going off on us and wouldn't even let us respond. I again say get off the property now.
The woman then starts saying she has come out there and taken pictures for evidence and that if we don't have a doghouse out there by tonight that we will be on the front page of the paper for this and everything. Well we just so happened to be getting one tonight so good timing. But anyways she said she was going to be coming back by tonight to see if we had and that she was going to be waiting to see if we correct these issues and animal control will be coming to get the dog. I pull out my phone and say leave now I am calling the cops so they finally leave. The woman that went off on my wife laughed when we said we would call the police....her husband is a judge for the city and they live in our neighborhood.
Anyways, I just was trying to figure out if there is anything I can do aside from filing a police report for them trespassing? I am sure I left out some details on the story but that is pretty much it. We take care of our dog, I am an animal person and would never do anything like she implied. It is beyond ridiculous the way they acted and how they refused to get off the property and said they would be coming back. I am going to keep her inside for the most part until this dies down some. But them being in the neighborhood I fear she will always be on our case looking for anything to cause an issue over.