I have a neighbor who lives two houses down from us. He owns a pack of dogs, and does not keep them confined in any way. As a result, they wander the neighborhood at night, getting into people’s yards and killing their pets. Our immediate neighbor has had several of his cats literally torn apart (my mom witnessed one of them being killed, and was unable to stop the dogs in time).

The dogs have come into our yard, and have killed most of our chickens. Last night, they killed Ethel, a hen that I had raised by hand.

Numerous calls to the Humane Society have done nothing. The neighbor himself was spoken to several times, and at first he said he would pen up his dogs, but didn’t. Now he won’t even take responsibility and gets all nasty, “How do you know they are my dogs?”

Because we live higher up the mountain than you, jackass, and can see you with them in your own goddamn yard.

Calls to the police only get us redirected to the Humane Society, a organization which has proved itself to be useless.

At this point I am open to suggestion. My next move is to go to the Humane Society personally on my next day off, and ask if there are any complaint forms I can file, and ask them the exact procedures concerning a pack of wild dogs in the neighborhood. Maybe with me in front of them and not on the phone, they will give me a better answer than, “We’ll look into it.”