I have lived in a quant town house community for over 7 years now and never had any problems. I am in an end unit with a good amount of space between the next section of units (I personally have .14 acre). The other month a new person moved in across the yard and within two weeks of her moving in she called the cops on me. I hadn't even had an opportunity to formally introduce myself and all of a sudden I have the cops showing up to help me with that. At the time I had a lab, bull terrier and shiba inu as part of my furry family. The cop wasn’t quite sure what the complaint was all about, but he checked out my situation and said that everything seemed to be in order. I have a stake in the back yard and then I would put the dogs on their leads so they could go to the potty and have some play time. He tried to pull on the stake and couldn’t budge it. It was purchased from Petsmart and it was weighted for a couple hundred pounds of pressure. The leads I use are also weighted and they were purchased for about 15 pounds over what the dogs weighed. If he would have found that I was breaking any township ordinances I assume he would have told me about them. Later that day I saw her walking to her front door and ran across the yard to talk to her to see if I could figure out what was going on. She really wouldn’t talk to me, but she did say that she “feared for her life” due to the dogs. I explained to her that they were on 15 foot leads and they get nowhere near her house. She said that she didn’t care and walked into her house. About a week later the same cop shows up at my door telling me that she had called them once again. He said that he didn’t understand what her problem was and that the only thing he could think of is that she had never been around dogs or had a bad experience with one at some point. I had to make arrangements for the dogs to find alternative housing since she was causing so many problems. I had my bull terrier at my parents house, but my brother decided to introduce another dog into the family and it just became too much for everyone. She is technically my dog so I decided to take her back to live with me a few weeks ago. I have been very, very, very careful when she is outside and if there is any chance my crazy neighbor might be around, we don’t go out. All was going well until the other day when she inadvertently received some of my mail. She rang my doorbell and I opened the door. Well, any of you that have dogs may know that when a doorbell rings a dog usually barks. I opened the door and she said that she had some of my mail and that she would just leave it for me outside. I didn’t say a word to her… not a peep… and she placed the mail on the table out front and walked away. I waited until she reached her property and then proceeded to open the door to get my mail before it blew away. Well, just when I thought things had settled down, I have the police knocking on my door once again. I don’t know what is wrong with this lady and it really has 1)ticked me off and 2)made me fear taking my dog(s) outside of the house to go to the bathroom. There have never been any incidents with my dogs in the neighborhood, so if they had a reputation then I might be able to understand it. Anyone that has any advice as to what I can do would be greatly appreciated. I am at my wits end and don’t want this to lead to going to court and taking the chance of losing my dog(s) over one sick individual.

There can be a multitude of explanations as to why she doesn't like your dogs (an irrational fear, maybe a truamitizing event etc.) What you should do is obviously keep your dogs inside simply walk up to your neighbors house and calmly and politely ask what is it about your pets that makes her feel [I]so[I] uncomfortable. If she gives you a logical reason as to why she is uncomfortable around dogs then come to a compromise or something (since we have no idea what she will say we can't really speculate about what to do as of yet)

Good luck

So the police come to your door, offer them coffee and donuts.
Laugh and talk about the nut case next door.

2. ask for a restraining order

3. If you have a right to have your dogs somewhere , do it.

Hello Pat:

The Padre is right on. You ARE obeying the law - or you AREN'T. There isn't any in between. Don't worry about losing your dogs. Don't worry about your neighbor. Worry about the election.

excon

Do you have Beware of Dog signs posted anywhere on your property or your front door? If you don't would suggest that you get some and prominently post them. Then when she gets your mail again and decides to hand deliver it she will be confronted by the Beware of Dog sign(s). I had 3 German Shepards (very big) and when I posted the signs around my property I had no unwanted visitors to my home.

I can relate. You should read my most recent post. I like excon's answer though! Lol

It just got more interesting... I had the police department show up at my house while I wasn't home so he left his card. I called this afternoon only to find out that there is a warrant out for my arrest for not paying a fine. I asked him what he was talking about and he said that I had been sent something to pay a fine since they had been called out so many times and I had apparently broken the township dog ordinance (even though he couldn't tell me exactly what it was). He took a few minutes to review the paperwork and it said that something was sent but it had been returned back to them saying bad address, undeliverable, or something to that effect. If I never received anything how in the world am I supposed to be held liable for something I don't know anything about? Luckily he was cool about all of it and gave me the contact information to deal with it tomorrow, but I just can't believe I have found myself in this situation when nothing has ever happened or no one has ever been hurt.

Something wrong here, the number of times police come out, if there was nothing, they should be pressing charges against the person calling them for filing a false report.

Assuming you did not break any dog law??

But if you did not break any laws, hire an attoreny, counter sue the city and the neighbor for harassment.