Neighbor seeks help with rude dog owner

DEAR MARIANN: We have a lot of neigh­bors who own dogs, and most all of them seem to be respon­si­ble about pick­ing up their waste as the ani­mal and owner walk nightly. How­ever, it is becom­ing increas­ingly obvi­ous that at least one such dog walker dis­re­gards the com­mon cour­tesy of clean-up, with a reg­u­lar deposit in my yard from a rather large dog. Any sug­ges­tions as to how we as a neigh­bor­hood might address this prob­lem? The evi­dence is obvi­ous, but the cul­prit is not.

MARIANN’S RESPONSE: Pre­vi­ously, I have men­tioned about the inva­sion of tech­nol­ogy upon our per­sonal lives and how it can be dis­re­spect­ful to oth­ers and also while in pub­lic. How­ever, this is one cir­cum­stance where I sup­port our elec­tronic capa­bil­i­ties. How about installing out­side sur­veil­lance cam­eras to catch the cul­prits? Web­cams are now less expen­sive than in the past and peo­ple enjoy mon­i­tor­ing the safety of their homes while away; what the babysit­ter is doing with their child; being enter­tained at work by “home alone” pet mis­chief; and in this cir­cum­stance could be valu­able in catch­ing this incon­sid­er­ate dog owner. Once you have video­taped evi­dence, con­front this neigh­bor­hood clod. As much of an ani­mal lover as I am, it is the owner’s respon­si­bil­ity to clean-up after their pet.

In con­junc­tion with the web­cam, I would post a pro­fes­sion­ally printed yard sign where the dog has been known “to go.” Sim­ply stated, “This prop­erty is under web­cam sur­veil­lance for catch­ing incon­sid­er­ate pet-owners,” makes your point and hope­fully will keep the tan­dem from com­ing into your yard. If they do, you will have video evi­dence that is indis­putable if the dog and human images are rec­og­niz­able and you can iden­tify the culprits.

Is there a home­own­ers asso­ci­a­tion? Imple­ment­ing fines for those who are caught by the web­cam could be con­sid­ered. And finally if all else fails, most pet stores sell some type of ani­mal repel­lant that you can use with­out dam­age to grass, plants and shrub­bery to make your yard unde­sir­able, at least to canine noses.

READER’S QUESTION: We have a neigh­bor who is retired after a very suc­cess­ful pro­fes­sional career and well respected by most every­one in this com­mu­nity. How­ever, he is a non-stop talker, oppres­sively intense with opin­ions, and reg­u­larly writes let­ters to the edi­tor of our local news­pa­per. How might we shield our­selves from receiv­ing a “ser­mon” upon encoun­ter­ing him?

MARIANN’S RESPONSE: The joys of liv­ing in a neigh­bor­hood… I am not sure which is the lesser of two evils; being blessed with incon­sid­er­ate dog own­ers or hes­i­tant to be out­side in fear of see­ing “Mr. Know-It-All.” This sounds like a per­son who is inse­cure and poten­tially is try­ing to impress oth­ers as extremely knowl­edge­able to build his own ego. Pos­si­bly he missed his pro­fes­sional call­ing by not pur­su­ing pol­i­tics as a voca­tion or maybe he did since you men­tion that he is now retired. Except for using this per­son­al­ity style in the polit­i­cal arena, usu­ally this “know-it-all” style back­fires and alien­ates those whom he encounters.

Here it comes again, my lec­ture on bound­aries. This per­son needs to be respect­ful of your time, while you must be force­ful in main­tain­ing time lim­its. When you see him com­ing, be pre­pared. Imme­di­ately before he cycles into a ser­mon, suc­cinctly men­tion “It is good to see you, Stan­ley, but my wife and I only have a few min­utes before we need to go else­where,” (such as lunch, church, physician’s appoint­ment, the tan­ning bed, etc…) After those few min­utes have expired, say again “It was great see­ing you, but we need to run to that appoint­ment,” and then exit, even if he is mid-sentence. You have given him warn­ing with the pre­vi­ous time lim­i­ta­tion state­ment, so stick to it by depart­ing his pres­ence on cue. Once you are firm with peo­ple that your time has value, depart­ing the sit­u­a­tion after giv­ing prior notice solid­i­fies the seri­ous­ness of your words.

Even more prob­lem­atic is a per­son who talks exces­sively on the tele­phone and monop­o­lizes the con­ver­sa­tion since body cues of look­ing at your watch or seem­ing dis­tracted aren’t rec­og­niz­able via the cel­lu­lar unless “Skyp­ing.” Please read­ers be con­sid­er­ate of oth­ers around you. Whether it is walk­ing your dog, see­ing a neigh­bor in their yard, or talk­ing on the cel­lu­lar, be con­scious of their rights to per­sonal space and time lim­i­ta­tions. Not every­one enjoys hav­ing unplanned con­ver­sa­tions or wants to hear a ser­mon on the sub­ject you have deemed impor­tant for that day. What is fas­ci­nat­ing to one per­son is no guar­an­tee that oth­ers will share your same passion.

Mar­i­ann Main is a Licensed Coun­selor and a Delaware native. Her col­umn appears weekly on Wednes­days. To sub­mit a ques­tion and have Mar­i­ann answer it anony­mously, visit delgazette.com/life-questions-with-local-answers or send mail to the Delaware Gazette office, 40 N. San­dusky St., suite 203, Delaware, OH 43015.

Posted by Mariann Main on Jan 9 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.