I will not give my answer to the What Would You Do If - Wednesday question until late in the day - after everyone has had the opportunity to offer their ideas first.
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What would you do if ...
Your neighbor - a very good friend - constantly allowed her dog to poop in your yard/on your lawn - without ever cleaning it up and allowed it to happen day after day after day?Would you just ignore the situation to preserve the friendship.
Would you confront the friend - ask her to STOP IT!
What would you do?
Please go over and participate in the poll question on this topic.
This subject came up on someone's site recently - I wish I could remember who it was. I have never had to deal with this particular problem, but ... it is the sort of thing that I would have a hard time confronting a friend about. I would not be happy about the situation and the friend not being more considerate, but ... I would not be comfortable confronting my friend about this. I might build a fence or put up a sign in my yard. This is sort of the chicken way out of having to address the situation, but I would not want to say anything that might hurt the friendship over something like this. That's just me.
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17 comments:
Hmmm. I have done this several times with neighbors who were not close friends. In some cases it has worked, in others it hasn't.
I think even if it were a close friend, I would find some tactful way to ask her to control her dog. But it's hard - I don't do well with any kind of conflict.
This makes me laugh because (1) I am the one with seven dogs! lol
and (2) I got into it with a lady in our old neighborhood over this very thing. My dog pooped in an area they were allowed to go in and she got all huffy about it. It was not pretty!
Anyway, that said, if they were letting their dog poo in my front lawn in an area where we'd be stepping in it, I'd probably nicely ask them to stop...or just put up a fence!
As a new comer to town life, I find dog poop to be one of the bad side affects. I find it disgusting the number of people who don't clean up after their dogs. As a dog owner I would never consider it OK to let my dog poop in someone's yard and walk away.
So to answer the question, yes I would say something.
Our neighbor has a St Bernard, she poops mountains! We fuss a little when a pile chokes the tractor mower down, but otherwise, it's been great fertilizer for the lawn. There's no worry about accidentally stepping in it unless you're blind. :-)
If I saw the dog do it's duty, I'd walk out with a plastic bag and hand it to the neighbor.
Otherwise, I'd ask her to please pick it up because my children play there.
At our previous house, we lived on a corner . . . every dog on the planet found it necessary to poop in my yard and NOBODY picked up after their dogs (grrrrr). We finally put up a little split rail fence, just around the corner area, with a flower bed on the house side of it . . . everyone got the hint. Cheap solution, with landscaping as a bonus, and no hurt feelings.
the passive agressive person in me would totally send an anonymous package to my neighbor/my friend included within: a package of dog poop bags and a note asking them to kindly use them:b
l,
d
I would find a tactful or humorous way to say something.
I'm confrontational about a lot of things, but this wouldn't be one of them. I'd just make one of my kids clean it up.
I would go over and confront them in a very nice way. I know of a person who would collect it all and fling it in the neighbors yard at night.
We've got some rules in my city in relations to dog poop. Seriously..hehe. If you're walking your dog you have to take a poop bag with you and pick it up if they do. You can get fined if you're caught not doing it I think!!
I'd have to ask the friend to stop though. For the simple fact that I gag at the sight of it and there's no way I could clean it! :)
Trace
I would be totally honest and say that that really bothers me!!!
xoxo
I think if you really are 'good friends', you should say something about it. Afterall -- if it was the other way around, you would probably want to know that it bothered your frind.
OMG! Brenda's comment is a riot! I would definitely have the conversation with the neighbor. This has happened to me before. Being the owner of three dogs, I understand these types of situations, but the owner has to take SOME responsibility and it really pisses me off when the dog owner doesn't clean up the poop that's right smack on the front lawn!! But, I think tact is important!! I am thinking of you tonight, Kellan....and praying you and your family are safe and out of harm's way.
I'd be tempted to scoop up the poop with a shovel and fling it over into their yard.
I'm a good neighbor, eh??? ha ha ha!
None of the people living closest to us have a dog, so it's pretty likely any dog poop in our yard is from our own dog
I would like to think that I'd bring it up gently, and just almost in passing, as if it weren't a big deal. But just say hey, I've been noticing this more often, could you maybe take care to clean up after your dog in my yard, or just keep the dog out of my yard? But very non chalant/calmly.
Well we did just recently deal with this. My husband got tired of picking up large poop from 1 of my neighbors 3 dogs. He resisted confronting her until the dog did his business on our patio carpet. My neighbor offered to come clean it up, but dh asked her just to keep her dog from doing it again. A few days later it happened on our patio AGAIN. She received a phone call and this time was allowed to clean it up herself. Ugh! Not a pleasant battle with an otherwise good neighbor.
OMG I know this post is old but I just have to comment.
I own a dog and I'm all about being a responsible dog owner. If my dog poops somewhere other than our yard - ANYWHERE - I clean it up. I will NOT tolerate other people's dogs pooping in my yard. It is not my responsibility to clean up their dog crap. I have 4 kids and I should be allowed to let them run around in the yard barefoot if I want to.
If it were my neighbor, I would start negotiations with a generic comment, like "Someone has been letting their dog poop in our yard a lot. I don't know who it is, but I'm going to start watching and if I see the dog, I'm going to mace it!" or "I'm going to shoot it with a bb gun" or something like that. I bet there would never need to be a second conversation. BUT IF THERE WERE, I would say, I saw your dog visited our lawn today. *insert nervous laughter from friend* Well, I thought I'd bring by some plastic grocery bags for you because I thought maybe the reason you didn't pick it up was because you didn't have these. But now you do! If you need any more just let me know. If it happened again, I would take the dog to the pound myself.
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