piaffepony
Silver Member
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2017
- Messages
- 126
- Location
- Ft. Worth
- Tractor
- JD 5055D, David Brown1212, NH LS170, JD Gator 850D
I need some opinions... Sorry for the novel.
I have a 52 acre horse farm and 4 German Shepherds who are free to roam the farm, although they usually follow me around most of the day everyday since I work at home.
2 males and 2 females, all very well behaved and socialized. We take them to a very busy dog park a lot and clients will occasionally bring their dogs to the farm too. My two females are not aggressive to large dogs at all invited or not.. they are totally fine with small dogs that are accompanied by a human and once familiar, have no further issues. I have NEVER had any issues until now.
My new neighbor (our houses are approx 350ft apart) has lived next door for about 6 months but is the daughter of my former neighbor.. so we’ve known them for 20 years. When they moved in, they brought their 5 small dogs.
I previously leased the 2 acre pasture that separates our houses. My large pasture goes behind their house. There is also 100 acres of vacant, over grown woody land across the street that we will do a little trail riding on... so basically my dogs are accustomed to accessing these places, but don’t bother any other neighbors or their property.
One of my neighbor’s dogs comes out and constantly barks and antagonizes my dogs. She usually keeps the smaller ones in the house and usually keeps a close eye on them when they’re out, except for this one azzhole black female dog who likes to stay out more. The azzhole usually stays on their property.. I’ve only seen it come onto my property or the vacant lot across the street a couple times but the dog doesn’t listen to my neighbor very well when he call. The issue is the shared fence line is much closer to my house than theirs, and it’s only a 5 strand barbless wire fence so the dogs can easily go through. Neither of us have the cash to put up no-clime wire on the 650ft fence. My dogs have taken off after it several times but they always stop and come back when I call.
Wednesday when we were both outside, some of her dogs wandered across the street and our 2 females got ahold of the smaller white one because the black one ran away. I was working on the tractor and didn’t see it in time. I ran closer and yelled and thankfully they stopped and came back.
Since I’m well stocked and versed in veterinarian first aid and friends with a large animal vet near by, I told her I would grab supplies and come over to check it out and contact my vet to see if we could save her some $$. I shaved the wounds and cleaned them thoroughly. Took pictures to text to vet because there were 2 wounds that were borderline. 1 could’ve used a couple stitches but was on his flank (a high motion area where the stitches might not hold). The other on his lower neck. Neither one were critical or disfiguring and there was very little blood. The vet said he was out on an emergency call, but basically said the same thing I did. “Yes they could try to stitch them, but not the end of the world if it wasn’t. But would definitely need antibiotics and pain meds (which I already had on hand and gave to my neighbor along with bandaging supplies).
After I left, they decided to take him to the ER (the one I hate...because they strongly push a lot of unnecessary treatments). My neighbor then texts me a copy of the bill saying “I’m going to need some help with this!”. It was over $1200! They did a ton of unnecessary crap...they did an iv cath, fluids, ran a huge blood panel, basically shaved the whole dog looking for wounds, general anesthesia to staple the two wounds up and kept her overnight for observation. The last time I went to this place, a horse got out and ran over my oldest dog but her only injury was a 6” nasty, but superficial laceration to a front paw.. maybe worthy of a couple stitches but definitely not mandatory. It was swelling up so I took her to there to get it xrayed just in case. They wanted to do blood work and put my 13 y/o, heart worm positive, well behaved shepherd under just to do the X-ray! I told them “No freaking way! I won’t take that big of a risk with my dog’s life for an X-ray. Ace her and take the X-ray...” they got their supervisor and she agreed to my request and said all looked well. They acknowledged that it would heal fine if it was kept wrapped.. the vet proceeds to grab cleaning and wrapping supplies... I asked her how much wrapping her foot would cost and they said $45!!! Ummm no thank you. I have all the stuff at home and have bandaged hundreds of wounds. I still walked away with a $420 bill.
Anyway... She acknowledges that her dog is the instigator and is causing issues. I will probably help her out some with the bill to keep the peace.. but how much is fair? The thing that bothers me the most is that she doesn’t seem to be doing anything to contribute to a solution. The majority of her property isn’t fenced either. Neither one of us have gates for our driveways. I’m going to put a couple of hot wires low on the fence to hopefully deter my dogs from going through it, but I’m not going to lock them up! My dogs have a purpose.. they keep the coyotes away from our animals and alert us if a horse is out, or causing trouble. Hers are strictly pets. Are there any other low cost solutions I could suggest to her? The tension between our dogs is growing and the electric wire is not a totally full proof solution either.
I have a 52 acre horse farm and 4 German Shepherds who are free to roam the farm, although they usually follow me around most of the day everyday since I work at home.
2 males and 2 females, all very well behaved and socialized. We take them to a very busy dog park a lot and clients will occasionally bring their dogs to the farm too. My two females are not aggressive to large dogs at all invited or not.. they are totally fine with small dogs that are accompanied by a human and once familiar, have no further issues. I have NEVER had any issues until now.
My new neighbor (our houses are approx 350ft apart) has lived next door for about 6 months but is the daughter of my former neighbor.. so we’ve known them for 20 years. When they moved in, they brought their 5 small dogs.
I previously leased the 2 acre pasture that separates our houses. My large pasture goes behind their house. There is also 100 acres of vacant, over grown woody land across the street that we will do a little trail riding on... so basically my dogs are accustomed to accessing these places, but don’t bother any other neighbors or their property.
One of my neighbor’s dogs comes out and constantly barks and antagonizes my dogs. She usually keeps the smaller ones in the house and usually keeps a close eye on them when they’re out, except for this one azzhole black female dog who likes to stay out more. The azzhole usually stays on their property.. I’ve only seen it come onto my property or the vacant lot across the street a couple times but the dog doesn’t listen to my neighbor very well when he call. The issue is the shared fence line is much closer to my house than theirs, and it’s only a 5 strand barbless wire fence so the dogs can easily go through. Neither of us have the cash to put up no-clime wire on the 650ft fence. My dogs have taken off after it several times but they always stop and come back when I call.
Wednesday when we were both outside, some of her dogs wandered across the street and our 2 females got ahold of the smaller white one because the black one ran away. I was working on the tractor and didn’t see it in time. I ran closer and yelled and thankfully they stopped and came back.
Since I’m well stocked and versed in veterinarian first aid and friends with a large animal vet near by, I told her I would grab supplies and come over to check it out and contact my vet to see if we could save her some $$. I shaved the wounds and cleaned them thoroughly. Took pictures to text to vet because there were 2 wounds that were borderline. 1 could’ve used a couple stitches but was on his flank (a high motion area where the stitches might not hold). The other on his lower neck. Neither one were critical or disfiguring and there was very little blood. The vet said he was out on an emergency call, but basically said the same thing I did. “Yes they could try to stitch them, but not the end of the world if it wasn’t. But would definitely need antibiotics and pain meds (which I already had on hand and gave to my neighbor along with bandaging supplies).
After I left, they decided to take him to the ER (the one I hate...because they strongly push a lot of unnecessary treatments). My neighbor then texts me a copy of the bill saying “I’m going to need some help with this!”. It was over $1200! They did a ton of unnecessary crap...they did an iv cath, fluids, ran a huge blood panel, basically shaved the whole dog looking for wounds, general anesthesia to staple the two wounds up and kept her overnight for observation. The last time I went to this place, a horse got out and ran over my oldest dog but her only injury was a 6” nasty, but superficial laceration to a front paw.. maybe worthy of a couple stitches but definitely not mandatory. It was swelling up so I took her to there to get it xrayed just in case. They wanted to do blood work and put my 13 y/o, heart worm positive, well behaved shepherd under just to do the X-ray! I told them “No freaking way! I won’t take that big of a risk with my dog’s life for an X-ray. Ace her and take the X-ray...” they got their supervisor and she agreed to my request and said all looked well. They acknowledged that it would heal fine if it was kept wrapped.. the vet proceeds to grab cleaning and wrapping supplies... I asked her how much wrapping her foot would cost and they said $45!!! Ummm no thank you. I have all the stuff at home and have bandaged hundreds of wounds. I still walked away with a $420 bill.
Anyway... She acknowledges that her dog is the instigator and is causing issues. I will probably help her out some with the bill to keep the peace.. but how much is fair? The thing that bothers me the most is that she doesn’t seem to be doing anything to contribute to a solution. The majority of her property isn’t fenced either. Neither one of us have gates for our driveways. I’m going to put a couple of hot wires low on the fence to hopefully deter my dogs from going through it, but I’m not going to lock them up! My dogs have a purpose.. they keep the coyotes away from our animals and alert us if a horse is out, or causing trouble. Hers are strictly pets. Are there any other low cost solutions I could suggest to her? The tension between our dogs is growing and the electric wire is not a totally full proof solution either.
