ellz Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Recently a friend was visiting and I went to the sink to put some dishes on it. Looked up into the backyard and to my utter shock, horror, amazement and absolute disbelief there was a very young (ie probably not much more than 4 or 5 year old) child in my backyard stealing fruit off my trees. And jumping up at him, asking to play were my Stafford and my Greyhound. I immediately yelled "oi, get out of my yard" and he scuttled across the yard and jumped the fence into the next door neighbour's yard. My friend and I discussed it a bit and I decided that I couldn't let it go and went next door to speak to the neighbour. Unfortunately neither of the parents were available and what I presume was an older brother said a few choice words and said he'd tell his father. I'm hoping that the child didn't get into too much trouble but he needs to know that it is NOT ok to climb a fence into a stranger's backyard, especially when there are dogs there and especially when you're going to steal something. If he'd only knocked on the door and asked, I would have cheerfully let him in and helped him to load up on the fruit but it would have been on my terms and I would have been able to introduce him properly to the dogs. Am just thankful my dogs are fine with strangers because it could have ended very badly. Upon reflection, I also have to wonder what the parents were doing and why the child wasn't being supervised. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoldenGirl85 Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Wow. It's a good thing your dogs are happy to see strangers in their yard... Imagine how it would work out for you if they weren't Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pheebs Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) It's crazy isn't it. I used to frequently find the neighbours kids in my backyard after they'd lost a ball over the fence. Fortunately my Weimaraner thought it was a great game to run around with said ball in her mouth singing her typical "woo woo!" song (the game of chasing her to get it back always seemed to give her great delight) but it never ceased to amaze me how easily this scenario could turn very nasty and how little the parents actually cared. Edited February 7, 2012 by Pheebs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loving my Oldies Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Wow. It's a good thing your dogs are happy to see strangers in their yard... Imagine how it would work out for you if they weren't Yes, it wouldn't have been the parents of the child who were at fault . It is his right as a child to go into other's yards and steal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dame Aussie Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Idiot parents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
german_shep_fan Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Wow. It's a good thing your dogs are happy to see strangers in their yard... Imagine how it would work out for you if they weren't Yes, it wouldn't have been the parents of the child who were at fault . It is his right as a child to go into other's yards and steal. I totally agree! However in the eyes of the law and the anti-dog doogooders if a dog attacked a child in this situation you can get your bottom dollar it would be the dog and the owner who are at fault with the dog being PTS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlowerProwler Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Wow. It's a good thing your dogs are happy to see strangers in their yard... Imagine how it would work out for you if they weren't Yes, it wouldn't have been the parents of the child who were at fault . It is his right as a child to go into other's yards and steal. I totally agree! However in the eyes of the law and the anti-dog doogooders if a dog attacked a child in this situation you can get your bottom dollar it would be the dog and the owner who are at fault with the dog being PTS That was my first thought as well! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dame Aussie Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Wow. It's a good thing your dogs are happy to see strangers in their yard... Imagine how it would work out for you if they weren't Yes, it wouldn't have been the parents of the child who were at fault . It is his right as a child to go into other's yards and steal. I totally agree! However in the eyes of the law and the anti-dog doogooders if a dog attacked a child in this situation you can get your bottom dollar it would be the dog and the owner who are at fault with the dog being PTS Yep, it's ridiculous. They'd have to find me first if it were my dog. ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ellz Posted February 7, 2012 Author Share Posted February 7, 2012 Mine too. So much for the safety of your own backyard. That said, my dogs are also very well socialised, brought up with children and have impeccable temperaments so I am fortunate in that regard. But the potential was certainly there for a tragedy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erny Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) Lucky as!! Phew, I think my heart would have skipped a beat as well. Just as a tip though, for if this happens again .... call your dogs to you first-off and give them a good and decent reward for coming to you. When you have them secured, then tell the child to knick off. Even the most socialised and well-behaved dogs can misinterpret what we're doing by telling off a (in this instance) stranger who is trespassing and think it would be the only right and proper pack thing to do by helping you deal with the situation. Edited February 7, 2012 by Erny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Salukifan Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Wow. It's a good thing your dogs are happy to see strangers in their yard... Imagine how it would work out for you if they weren't Yes, it wouldn't have been the parents of the child who were at fault . It is his right as a child to go into other's yards and steal. I totally agree! However in the eyes of the law and the anti-dog doogooders if a dog attacked a child in this situation you can get your bottom dollar it would be the dog and the owner who are at fault with the dog being PTS Nope. Read the law. A dog that attacks in its own backyard is not generally held to be at fault. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ellz Posted February 7, 2012 Author Share Posted February 7, 2012 Wow. It's a good thing your dogs are happy to see strangers in their yard... Imagine how it would work out for you if they weren't Yes, it wouldn't have been the parents of the child who were at fault . It is his right as a child to go into other's yards and steal. I totally agree! However in the eyes of the law and the anti-dog doogooders if a dog attacked a child in this situation you can get your bottom dollar it would be the dog and the owner who are at fault with the dog being PTS Nope. Read the law. A dog that attacks in its own backyard is not generally held to be at fault. Under normal circumstances I'd agree...however given that one of the dogs is a Staffordshire Bull Terrier....the media would have a field day, the anti-dog lobby would join in and the end result would be the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
german_shep_fan Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Wow. It's a good thing your dogs are happy to see strangers in their yard... Imagine how it would work out for you if they weren't Yes, it wouldn't have been the parents of the child who were at fault . It is his right as a child to go into other's yards and steal. I totally agree! However in the eyes of the law and the anti-dog doogooders if a dog attacked a child in this situation you can get your bottom dollar it would be the dog and the owner who are at fault with the dog being PTS Nope. Read the law. A dog that attacks in its own backyard is not generally held to be at fault. Makes a change! Is that Australia wide? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cavstar Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Idiot parents. +1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ellz Posted February 7, 2012 Author Share Posted February 7, 2012 Wow. It's a good thing your dogs are happy to see strangers in their yard... Imagine how it would work out for you if they weren't Yes, it wouldn't have been the parents of the child who were at fault . It is his right as a child to go into other's yards and steal. I totally agree! However in the eyes of the law and the anti-dog doogooders if a dog attacked a child in this situation you can get your bottom dollar it would be the dog and the owner who are at fault with the dog being PTS Nope. Read the law. A dog that attacks in its own backyard is not generally held to be at fault. Just did a quick check on this and from what I could see the law in Tasmania doesn't differentiate between a dog bite in public or a dog bite on private property specifically. It does however say that a dog is not considered to be "rushing or chasing" if confined securely behind a fence but the laws given for actual bites don't seem to make any distinction between public or private property. Kind of ambiguous really... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ellz Posted February 7, 2012 Author Share Posted February 7, 2012 Idiot parents. +1 +2 and you don't know the half of it. Definitely not contenders for Parents of the Year.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mirawee Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Interesting that the parents are automatically blamed. I read the post to mean the older child was of an age to be babysitting so why would the parents necessarily be to blame. For all you know the child would get a severe telling off for doing something like that if his parents had known ;) On the other hand they may not have cared less which is really sad for the child. Good to hear that nothing tragic happened though. I would be going over and having a chat to the parents to make sure they are aware. Don't do it in a "your son is a delinquent" way but just say what happened and you are concerned about the consequences should he have tried to do it in a yard where the dogs weren't friendly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dancinbcs Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 I would still confront the parents and if that gets you nowhere report it to the police that the child is trespassing and stealing from you and that you have warned the parents to keep the child out of your yard. Then if anything does happen it will be on record that you tried to stop the child entering your property. Either that or get an electric fence. I used to have kids try to jump the back fence after balls and at the time I had dogs that would likely bite anyone that came over the fence. I went round and fronted the parents and warned them that if they let their kids climb the fence and they got bitten it would be their fault. They didn't say much but the kids never did it again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ellz Posted February 7, 2012 Author Share Posted February 7, 2012 Interesting that the parents are automatically blamed. I read the post to mean the older child was of an age to be babysitting so why would the parents necessarily be to blame. For all you know the child would get a severe telling off for doing something like that if his parents had known ;) On the other hand they may not have cared less which is really sad for the child. Good to hear that nothing tragic happened though. I would be going over and having a chat to the parents to make sure they are aware. Don't do it in a "your son is a delinquent" way but just say what happened and you are concerned about the consequences should he have tried to do it in a yard where the dogs weren't friendly. The point is that a) SOMEBODY should have been watching the child...none of my business who that somebody was meant to be...clearly whomever it was....wasn't, b) the child should not go into other people's backyards without their knowledge or permission (the fact that he was stealing fruit was neither here nor there, as I sad, had he asked I would have cheerfully given him as much fruit as he could carry), c) although I didn't share here the exact words I used when I told the people next door that the little bloke was in my yard, I didn't make a big thing of the fact that he was "technically" stealing from me, in fact I didn't even mention it, I just told his sibling that he was in my yard and had climbed over the fence and made it clear that my biggest issue was him being in my yard, with strange dogs and no supervision. To be perfectly honest, if I went over for another "talk" with them, I doubt very much whether it would achieve anything because I SERIOUSLY doubt that the parents either give a toss, or that they would take it in any way other than accusatory and given what I've heard coming from their property since the start of the school holidays....they're much better kept at a nice distance!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Little Gifts Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 There was a man and his son who used to live across the road from me. The man was always screaming at the boy (around 5) because the boy was always on the street and usually way out of sight. I discovered that the boy was coming into my yard and opening up a small side gate and feeding his sandwiches to my dogs under the bigger locked fence and trying to poke sticks at them to get them to play or come closer. The dogs were not eating food from strangers - they are good like that, which is how I found out what was going on. I spoke to his father maybe half a dozen times, once in tears because I was terrified my dogs would bite off his son's fingers at some point. They have no issue with children but would consider things coming under the gate a threat as that gate is not normally used. The father just shrugged his shoulders and yelled at the boy yet another time. Thankfully they moved away after about 6 months. Imagine what would've happened to my dogs if they had've gotten hold of him and tried to drag the 'danger' under the gate to neutralise it. Despite the laws a child is still an innocent child in the eyes of your neighbours and the public regardless of what it did to provoke an attack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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