We were frustrated and angry. I said, "We'll put in a fence."
"A fence?"
"Yeah, not around everything. Just on this side, from the front of the porch to the property line, then back to the garage and tie in there. About 130 feet as I measure it, maybe a little more."
"What kind of fence?"
"I was thinking a tall, 5', chain link. Something strong but that you can see through."
"Well, I definitely would want to be able to see through it to see what that bitch is doing. But isn't that pretty expensive?"
"Look, she says she will kill the kittens if they come on her porch again and I believe her. And you know they probably will go there again before we can catch them because Irene always fed them there before she moved. So, yes, we will catch the kittens and bring them inside, but I don't know how easy it will be to trap Mama."
"So? I still don't see why we need a fence."
"Because she has told you and everyone else that she has no intention of moving. And even if she does we have had pretty poor luck with those neighbors in that apartment. More importantly, you know that dog lunges at you every time you walk to the garage. She intentionally puts him so he comes right to the property line and sometimes over.
I saw that metal stake she puts the chain on. Its driven in the ground less that a foot. If that dog pulled that stake out you could never fight off a vicious 100 pound dog and you know it. The Police Chief says he talked to her and she told him to get off her property. There is nothing he can do until the dog actually hurts someone."
We had been feeding the Mama cat and her two kittens in our summer kitchen shed. We had a heated water bowl and heated pad they could use for warmth, but they seldom stayed in the shed. Earlier that spring Sue caught the kittens and we had them spayed and given rabies shots.
They were about nine months old at the time, calico sisters of the two kitten litter Mama had dropped the prior summer. We called them Gracie and Allie, for Gracie Allen. I can't remember why. We did not consider them "our" cats. They were feral and we already had a cat.
Since we had no doubt that the woman next door would try to kill them, we had to catch the kittens again and bring them inside to be house cats if they would tolerate that. Sue caught them, brought them inside and they adapted quickly.
Unfortunately, our old brindled tabby, Divot, hated them and attacked them constantly. Fur flew everywhere and they were terrorized. Later, after months of trying to figure a way to keep Divot from killing them we gave up and a good friend who had to put her dog down recently took Divot.
Divot adjusted totally to being the only cat again and is happy. We pay for Divot's vet bills, buy food and litter for her when our friend will let us, and Sue visits our friend and Divot frequently. Now that Divot is queen again and has no competition, she could not be happier.
Meanwhile, since there was no way we were going to get that renter to move from next door I proceeded with the fence project. First was the land survey which was $450. I actually got a $200 discount because the surveyor was a friend. I got another friend who was starting a landscaping business to put in the fence as a way to add to the things he could do and then offer that service to his customers.
Although he had never done a chain link fence before, he did an excellent job and charged me "only" $1250, about half of what others were charging. So the fence project was $1700. Vet bills were another $150 for the feral kittens, and we still had the evil woman next door to contend with. Why? Because of the dog -- and because before we caught Mama she had another litter. We didn't know where she was keeping her kittens.
We had started feeding Mama out behind the garage on the alley because the dog would go nuts when he saw her and she would not come around, and the woman next door was threatening to kill her too. I had no doubt she would poison Mama if she could.
Within two months Mama started showing up out at the garage with two kittens, a light colored calico and a gray and black tabby. While we had put a nice custom made cat box out with the food and water they seldom got in it, preferring to live in the bushes and under the sheds in the neighborhood.
One morning Sue called me from work, "The cat box and the food and water dishes are gone."
What do you mean 'gone?'"
"They were there when I came home from work last night and they are just gone this morning."
"We both know who took them but there is no way to prove it."
"I know. But now I am worried about the kittens. If she sees them you know what she will do. They can scoot right under the fence in several places. I've seen them do it."
We agreed that we had all the cats we needed and that we would try to find a home for the kittens. So we called around to see if we could find anyone to take them. That did not work out.
A week later.
"The calico hasn't been around all week."
We looked around the neighborhood several times but never saw the calico again and have no idea whether the woman next door had caught it and killed it or if something else happened to it. Again, we had a theory and no proof.
Meanwhile, Mama had started rejecting the gray tabby, swiping at him if he came to eat and hissing and running him off. He was almost three months old and we had watched Mama do the same to Gracie and Allie at about the same age.
Mama's hormones were kicking in and she was likely to go into heat again shortly. It was time to catch her if we could and have her spayed. Eventually we caught her in a humane trap and had her spayed and given a rabies vaccine.
The little gray tabby was ultra friendly, loud and demanding of attention from Sue, totally unlike his calico sister who was shy and skittish before she vanished. Whenever the garage door was opened in the morning he was waiting for attention, running to her and crying all the time. She would pick him up, pet him and then get into the car. Soon he was jumping into the car as soon as she opened the door.
He would wait for her in the afternoons and as soon as she got home he would follow her car into the garage and yell his head off for attention. She was trying desperately to not get attached to him. But he started following her to the house and the dog next door would lunge and bark and claw at the ground and sometimes the fence.
I had more words with the woman about chaining the dog too close to the fence, which was 6" inside my property line. She screamed at me and I gave up and called the Police. They spoke to her again and told her I would press charges if the dog kept tearing at my new fence. I heard her screaming at them but the next day the stake was a couple of feet further from the fence.
Meanwhile we gave up trying to convince ourselves that we could not take in one more kitten, which is how we got Jake. He decided he was an inside cat and was never going to be alone again from the moment we set him down on the kitchen floor. He quickly started following his half sisters around demanding their attention too.
I named him Jacob because the Jacob of the Bible was a charmer and a scoundrel and Jake is growing into the name very well. He is loving, gets in trouble all the time, charms the socks off of everyone and then gets into more trouble -- just like his namesake did.
Through all of this commotion and anger and frustration with the woman next door I had been talking to her landlady about her. The landlady told me that she would do nothing about her until something happened that I could prove. It never did.
But, adding in the vet costs for Jake, when the dust settled the woman had cost us about $2000.
And, wouldn't you know, only a few months after we took in Jake the woman moved. I don't know why she moved but we were relieved to say the least.
Today, we have a new neighbor, another renter, a very nice single man in his 40s who has two cats! We often talk over the fence, almost always about loving cats. Right now I figure if every conversation we have is worth, say, $1, we should pay for the fence in about half a century or so.
I am gradually more able to look at the fence and not see dollar signs, but hey, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Or do they?
4635 page views 2010 03 31
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Lucy Mercer
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Comments
I think good fences make good neighbours -- they're a symbol of privacy and respect.
Terrific picture of your cats... "watching the world go by"
- rated
—Melissa
I am sorry for whatever happened to the calico. I have no idea why people are cruel but it seems as though animals and cats in particular tend to get the worst treatment. I'm glad that neighbor is gone and hopefully is somewhere she can't hurt cats. All of my cats have been adopted strays and it sickens me to think of someone hurting them.
On an entirely unrelated note, I wish you wouldn't call evil people "witches" for the same reason you shouldn't call people who are evil "Christians", refer to haggling as "Jewing down" or say that stupid things are "totally gay". It's another term which degrades and gives a false impression of what the word actually means. The witches I've known (those who practice Wicca) are often vegetarian and would never dream of hurting a cat. It's against everything they stand for. I realize this will probably strike you and many other people as being an odd request but I try to pay attention to my words so as not to belittle entire groups of people. Thank you and otherwise excellent post. Rated.
Thanks for being one of the "good guys" and saving those cute little kitties from that mean ole wench.
I like fences, but I think it is a shame that you were forced into putting one up. At one house that I lived, my cat used to climb the 7 foot chain link fence quite easily.
Monte
The kitty boys, Teaser and the Firecat approve of this post and send some of their Salmon kitty treats to Allie, Jake and Gracie.
I'm trying to remember the Robert Frost poem about walls.
Wait a minute, I know where it is:
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.'
From "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost
you are such good caring people!
Patricia: thanks for dropping by. I have not spent as much time here as usual, other priorities and all that, but good of you to drop by.
HL: I think that cats and dogs, while very different, can both do one thing very well: provide love and support to us without ever judging us unless we treat them poorly. People can learn much from them. I LOVED your post today!
Emma, always good to find you here. Your comment is much appreciated.
gm: thanks. Yeah, the cats are pretty cute and I can't tell you how long it took to get even one picture where all three were sitting still, together, at the same time! That window is a west facing one and I have since put a piano bench there which is the same height as the sill. In the winter it is a favorite place for them to "catch some BTUs and cat nap."
Greg: If we had any clue at the meanness of some people we could make a lot of money. For a long time I did not believe that there were many simply evil people in the world. But now I know that there are more than we think; we just don't often have to deal with them in a close environment.
Melissa: Lorraine found it and posted it in her comment below. I now understand your point exactly. Just read your second chapter on your adopted starling fledglings and loved it!
Thanks, Fab for reading and commenting. We have seldom been without two or three cats. Divot, the older cat, about 10 at the time, was the last of four cats we had at one time. The irony of her hatred of Allie and Gracie was that when she was a kitten and we took her in after she was dumped at the golf course in Ottawa, Illinois, was that the three older cats adopted her. We were hoping she would be happy to see some other cats. But that was a total misjudgment on our part.
Hey, Chuck, Good neighbors are priceless. Often though they are also rare. We have very nice neighbors on the west and the new guy on the right is very nice too. Maybe we are in for a time of friendship on both sides, something I would welcome and cherish.
RLady: thanks for your kind comments. It sounds like you too have spent some time taking in strays and vagabonds. I appreciate your heads up on the use of language. Mea culpa. I didn't even notice it and have corrected the copy.
sinolez: I am sure that the dog was not only mean but was specifically trained to be so. I can't imagine how I would feel or what revenge might be in my heart is someone shot my dog. After a while our pets become family to many of us. Thanks for your comments.
Thanks, Jim. appreciate your comments. Around here there are a few folks who have the solid wood fences, but most can't afford them. But surely we all do what we can to stop the interference of meddling neighbors. In this case we wanted to keep an eye on her. Her front porch was only about ten feet from our back door.
marcelleqb: "Make love, not walls" makes a lot of sense to me too. I am sure that most cats can climb chain link if they put their minds to doing so. The kittens were very tiny then and because the lot is not flat there were numerous places where they could get under the fence. I am just glad that Jake survived.
Buffy:There are large red tailed hawks here in the hills and they have been known to take kittens and even larger cats from time to time. "hawk snacks" are rare but not any nicer to contemplate than "coyote snacks. For a long time we let our cats go in and out routinely. Now it is total inside cats for us.
Hi, Kevin: keep being a sucker for critters. It shows how big your heart is.
Lisa: I feel sorry for them in the abstract, but when you are trying to deal with one of those types in the flesh mostly you feel like throttling them. Morning glories are everywhere around here so they will likely grow on the fence on their own!
Thanks, Walter. I think you hit the nail on the head. Cats ARE a pain in the butt yet they can also be infinitely enjoyable and loving too. Jake is certainly a PIA, but he is very loving and wants lots of affection too. They are a bit of an enigma, aren't they.
Susanne: with your green thumb one or two Clematis could likely cover the entire 130 feet! Thanks your feline boys for sharing their treats with my three!
Thank you so much, Lorraine. Glad you are reading and spending some time here. I think lots of us will thank you for finding that poem. Through the years we have had several feral cats neutered too. If you don't do that it doesn't take long before a village like this one can be overrun. The mother of our three was one of four born back around the summer of 03 and she was the only one that survived. Feral cats don't live all that long because of getting run over, getting killed by dogs and I imagine, but can't prove, getting poisoned by a lot of people who cannot stand feral cats. I know that people do poison them because they brag about it. Since they can't shoot them in the village they just poison them. I hate that more than I can say.
Thanks for the reading and the comments, folks.
Monte
Monte
What makes a bad neighbor? It's hard to tell when you have cat people next to dog people, owners next to renters. I'm just glad that your problem moved away and that your new neighbor is more agreeable.
... but in this case I think your neighbor should just be put down.
Great story. I kinda think that they need to be good neighbors before the fence is built. When my mom used that phrase it was meant as being freindly to the nieghbors but not pestering with being too friendly, coming over to the point where you lost your privacy.
That woman who moved is her own worst enemy. Her life, no matter where she goes, will be bad. The dog is her spirit and that spirit is mean and ugly.
You are a beautiful man to spend that money for helpless animals.
Bless you, my friend.
BTW, how are you feeling lately? I so relate to your fiery feet problem--mine do that, too, due to peripheral neuropathy after a back fusion that didn't go too well. So give us an update when you can, please. Rated. D
We had a better resolution to the problem, though - Mom asked him what Jesus would do. Never heard another word about the cat.
Plus, honestly, CHAINING the dog? Yuck. Your neighbor was a bad egg.
Gorgeous cats, and I bet it's a lovely homecoming seeing all those faces at the window.
Terrific piece. In every way. Jim is right---it does read like a mystery story. A really good one.
Hi, Tijo, I have to admit I had those thoughts too.
O'stephanie, that was kind of my idea of fences too. We were taught to respect privacy growing up. It is harder when they live so close. The dog was OK around her but she had it trained to go after people. Thanks for your kind comments about our helping strays.
Thanks, Yarn Over. My erythromelalgia and peripheral neuropathy are no worse. I still get a flare up every night and occasionally in the day time if I am not very careful not to do things that trigger it. The docs at the Cleveland Clinic have not linked it to anything worse, which is a blessing; but there is little known about the syndrome and no cure. Pain meds help but do not eliminate it. Mornings are hell for a few hours and then I can hobble around pretty good. Thanks for asking.
Hi, Elizabeth. That is an interesting suggestion. I will look it up. I was not trying to "diminish"; the Wicked Witch of the East comes from the Wizard of Oz and I picked it up as a child. I just screwed up. It is not in my nature to intentionally demean anyone.
Owl, as we both well know there is nothing like a self righteous Christian who is on a rant for ignoring the basic teachings of Jesus. She was not a practicing Christian; meanness just came naturally. Your Mom was right. We were not aware that the kittens were going on her porch and we asked her not to kill them and give us a week to catch them; and she told us to go to hell; that she would kill them, period. Usually threats are empty but it was pretty clear to us that hers may well not have been. We did manage to catch them over the next three days.
Hey, JR, good to hear from you. I am afraid you are right, although even without the money issue I did not like the idea of a fence. If we did keep a dog I would like one just so the dog could have a large yard to run in. Around here so many are kept on very short chains and neglected totally. I hate that, but it is legal to do it.
Yes, she was legally within her rights, Pepper. My cats are kept indoors at all times. But what got to me was not that she was right but that she would not allow us time to solve the problem and would not even talk to us reasonably about it. Her way of talking to everybody was to yell at them. Your interest in rescuing stray cats is wonderful.
Hi, Odette, she kept the dog in the house about half of the time. The chain was used because he was such a large and vicious dog. She liked to time putting it out when Sue was going to work because she knew that Sue would have to walk to the garage along the path between the houses and the dog could then intimidate Sue. It was scary. We used to carry a piece of pipe with us to and from but it would have likely been useless with a 100 pound dog coming at you full speed.
Thanks, MM, for the kind words. We have rabbit problems too with the garden and from time to time when it is bad enough I use chicken wire. It works. What a clever way to teach the campers about how a fence can be made to look nice. Right now we have a family of new bunnies living under a big weigelia out back. They are really cute and can't hurt anything growing here this late in the season.
Well, UK, at least she didn't make meth and love all night long.
!!! See. I still remember your problems with those neighbors upstairs. Did that problem ever get solved? I really loved Divot, still do. We ended up trying to live in a split house with Divot living in the kitchen and the basement and the other cats having the front of the house and the upstairs. It didn't work because Divot would blast out of the kitchen if we opened the door and go hunting for the kittens. She was obsessed. It was hard to give her up after 10 years because we had her first, but it did work out giving her to our friend, even though we did not want to part with her. Some cats, we learned, will never adjust, but it is not common.
Webbigail, thanks for the comments. The cats all wait for Sue to come home by sitting in the back kitchen windows. They have an amazing internal clock that never fails them.
Yeah, Roger, the timing was awful for our pocketbooks but there is no way to know. Who knows, if the new neighbor, Allen, moves we might get another rotten neighbor or a good one. I am used to the fence now and have gotten over how much we spent. Thanks for the generous comments.
Gary, if Chalk approves then all is right with the world. I am guessing that Chalk has adapted well to his new home. Have you written about that yet? It would be nice to get an update on him.
-------------------------
Thanks again, everyone who has read and commented, and to our silent readers as well. I did not think this little story would take off, and was shocked to see it got an EP, the first for me since last December. But I am glad to have it.
You all are just great.
Monte
Make sure the gun is unloaded. It would be illegal for you to go to her with a loaded weapon, but if it's unloaded, it's okay.
Of course, don't specify which bitch you'll kill. =)
No, seriously, you can't do that, but it would be nice to. One of the nice things about being a male is that if you say something like that to anyone, they will take you seriously. You don't even need the shotgun as a prop. Just saying, okay, if you're going to kill my pets when they go on your property, I will do the same. I wonder what your bitch's brains would look like spilled out on my lawn.
You are a good animal person!
Hi, Lea, love your line, "Good people make good neighbors." Right now we have that on both sides of us, so that is a new blessing.
Thanks, Gary, for commenting. I have thought about where she went and wondered who she was making miserable since. But am honestly thankful it is no longer Sue and me.
Hi, Mark, I think you missed where I said that we did catch Mama , "Mama's hormones were kicking in and she was likely to go into heat again shortly. It was time to catch her if we could and have her spayed. Eventually we caught her in a humane trap and had her spayed and given a rabies vaccine." In this village most feral cats are abandoned by owners, have lots of litters until someone poisons them. I will feed them and if I can catch them have them neutered, but almost inevitably they will be gone within a year probably from poisoning. I think that showing a skinny miserable animal that is basically an abandoned pet some TLC is not the same as taking in a bunch of wild animals who know how to fend for themselves.
dorelvis: It was a challenge that we were able to meet. In the future it will be hard to decide what to do since we will not take any more cats into the house. Three is plenty. Right now no cats are coming around and we do not ever put food down to encourage them, but do pay attention if they come begging.. Mama had about a year when she was free of having kittens two or three times a year. She was happy, got healthy, gained some weight and was a bouncy cat. She stopped coming around about a year later and I imagine she was killed. But we tried to make her life as good as we could.
Thanks, Rob, for reading and commenting. Happy endings are always good, and are not guaranteed, but this one turned out all right.
And thanks to all who read and who read and commented. Much appreciated.
Monte
Monte
I think as long as they think we are still teachable they won't kick us out.
Monte
Sig: I think you knew that was Gene's cat house and I have not had the nerve to tell him, so ssshhhhuuuuuuuhhhhhh.
Thanks for commenting, ladies.
Monte
God has given you food for thought here, that's for damn sure.
And he is just as complex and infuriating
to our meagre human moral reasoning as
you , sir, have always warned us he can be
when he puts his thinking cap on.
I note with satifaction that my name
is carried on....
James (Jacob)
Thanks for commenting. Take care, friend.
Monte
I am not as good as you, Monte. That neighbor would have made me cross-eyed.
Lucky cats, who have you for caretakers!
Anywhoos, no matter the cost, pets are like kids. They pay back what they owe at least 100 times with love.
Rated.
Thanks, Greg. That neighbor made my BP go up a lot of points a lot of time, but Sue was the one who surprised me: she was furious with the woman and Sue's instincts about protecting the defenseless really kicked into gear.
Gracie, you are never late to my posts. I know about the cost but it has always been worth it. What irritated me was that the costs were not because they were sick but because of the threat from another human. Jake has these bumps that form on his lips and under his chin caused by allergies and possibly auto immune issues called eosinophilic granuloma and it has been expensive to try different meds to stop it, and he may be on a low dose steroids all his life, but he is such a sweetie and there is no way we are not going to take the best care of him we can. They are like kids, indeed, and the love payback is priceless.
Thanks, Dusty. I had not had an EP or a Cover since last November so this totally shocked me. But I am glad I did. I was starting to wonder if the Editors even knew I still published around here. Three cats are handleable. For some reason when we had four in the house at once it was a much greater problem with clean up, etc. Doesn't make sense, but we found it to be the case. We had one like your fourth and did have him fixed, tried him inside and he was just not happy at all, never. Gave up and let him stay feral. Like most feral cats he didn't last too long and we don't know what happened to him. But he was clearly happiest left to his own devices except for food and occasional companionship. The new guy is VERY nice and we are lucky to have him as a neighbor.
Kay: good to have you come by. I don't write as often, mostly once a week or one religious and one post on another topic. I am doing more outside of OS. Sometimes I feel guilty about that, mostly because I do not read here nearly as much as I did. But I really am enjoying reading books again, catching up on my magazine subscriptions and spending more time actually listening to my music rather than having it just in the background. I also love spending a few hours with Sue each evening without interference from my OS obsession. Balance is better for me, but the guilt will always be there about not reading more. I have too many guilt buttons but they are not likely to go away at my age!!1
Thanks once more to all who have read and all who have read and commented. You are all great friends and it is much appreciated by me, and by the cats!
Monte
Bless you for what you do!
Interesting bio......I've added you as one of my favorites.
Monte
We still have our cat, Shylo, that was a stray who adopted us when we were newlyweds 9 years ago. Our aging neighbor used to complain that Shylo went in his card but after we give him rides and now share our lettuce from our garden he has decided to let our cat roam.... great writing and lovely story
YH: good to hear from you and hope you and yours are fine.
Shylo has a good gig going, nice home, lots of love and good parents, what's not to like?
Thanks for your comments, both of you.
Monte
JK: good to have you visit and comment. I will take a look at your latest post. Sorry you were bitten but at least you have the cat quarantined, so chances are excellent you will not have to endure the shots. Around here if you can't find the animal that has bitten rabies shots are mandatory. Glad to find another who cares about feral animals.
Monte
And Hooray! Nasty neighbor and nasty dog moved away! I've had some neighbors I was very glad to see the back of, especially the guy who played his TV loud enough to be clearly heard in neighboring buildings. Past eleven p.m. on weekends. Finally, his next door neighbor called the police on him one night at three a.m. when he was shouting at and hitting his girlfriend.
Fortunately, the neighbors I have now are nice, quiet, and don't threaten to hurt my indoor kitties.
He's the nicest guy, and just LOVES cats. So, one of my cats just lives there in the warm months. Summer Camp? Vacation Bible School?
The other one eats all day between our small gift of crunchies and the bounty across the street.
I guess it's sort of the opposite of your experience, but mostly because you can't fence a cat.
No fences here, in a small suburban neighborhood, although many people are, well, pissed off at the skunk parade that sashays to John's yard.
I tried once to talk to him about the , y'know, side effects of his generosity, but he's too nice to even approach the subject! And he's living his life - his wife is severly immobilized by , I think, late stage Parkinson's with something else, and seeing how he cares for her the few times she leaves the house is pertinent. He's lived in that house for over 50 years, so, god damn it, I'm going to let Dr. Doolittle have his Teddy bear's picnic!
He's earned the right, I think.
Hey, Incandescent, CATS: we have yet another thing in common. I have been to Phoenix and have noticed those walls. I always wondered how hot it must get in those patios without the benefit of breeze. Probably whether or not a fence like that makes sense is based not only on the tradition of the region but also on the personality of the owner of the house. If privacy is numero uno then they make sense. In my case I come from the plains originally where you could see to the horizon almost anywhere you were, and while privacy was prized we figured that was what the house was for. Small town America then, and mostly now, has few fences, and those mostly to allow dogs to run, simple chain link fences offering no real privacy. And mostly we know our neighbors, often go to church with them, see them in the cafe, and at the grocery and drug stores, read about them in the weekly newspaper. So I like what I grew up with, and am now growing old with. Besides, its far easier to yell at the neighbor to ask him to come help me with some thing I am fixing on my motorcycle when I can see him doing nothing in his back yard. Thankfully, he never minds.
Hi, Shiral, yep, it takes very little for a kitten to get to me. I am a real softy when I get one look into a kitten's eyes. When Jake first came inside he used to jump on my lap when I was in the Lazy Boy and burrow his head between my arm and belly and be fast asleep in a heartbeat. Who would not fall for that? Glad you have nice neighbors, and delirious that we now do. Since a dog almost killed one of our cats back in St. Louis, around 1994, all of our cats have been house cats. One of them, Puff, when he got very old and for about two years before he died enjoyed being outside in a large pet cage, about 3x4 that we kept on a table under a tree. I never could see why since he had three stories of house, including basement to roam in but they would beg to go lay in that cage on hot summer days. He, and two of his buddies, is buried there.
Aim: what a great comment. I like John already. Since in this hill country village and with high forested hills not a block from my front door and the river two blocks from my back door we have the full menagerie of animals traipsing through here all the time anyway: deer, raccoon, skunk, rabbits, a whole family growing up under a huge bush in the back yard, squirrels, feral cats and such it would not bother me at all to have John enjoy his Disney moments. Tell your neighbors that the skunks will be there with or without John. At least that is true around here. It is not uncommon to see them roaming around in the early evening feeding on bugs.
Why, thank you, Mama Lou. That is very kind of you to say. Glad that you enjoyed this post.
Thanks again, everyone! You are just great people, every one of you.
I hate the think about what our pets have cost us, but I just do it and live with it because they are part of the family. Their unconditional love has always been worth it.
Thanks,
Monte
What an awful neighbor. You have to watch that dog. Those stake don't hold them back like most people think, mostly large dogs. My yellow lab I used to have, pulled a stake completely out of the ground, and I had it all the way into the ground. He was only on a lead during hunting seasons, most of the time was loose because I lived on a farm.
Good luck with the neighbor. Hope for the best. She sure has cost you some money, but hopefully soon you can have some peace of mind too.
Great post, wonderful read..
Monte
Jake is a lover. Jake sometimes is a terror. And he is always amazing. Where ever he is in the house if I play a Sinatra CD he comes running, jumps on top of the equipment cabinet and sits and listens to it. If I put on any other music he ignores it. Go figure.
Anyway, all's well that ends well.
If all this happened this spring we would not have been able to put up the fence, too expensive, so things do fall into place at the right time now and then. We came into a little unexpected bonus money about the time all this was happening which totaled about 3/4 of what we spent on this episode.
Thanks for commenting, Mike. And you are never "too late" to come and read my stuff.
Monte
Monte
Monte
Shortly after the problem described here that neighbor moved and thankfully a very nice neighbor to moved in. Now he has moved and we have new neighbors moving in this week. Hopefully they will be friendly and considerate.
Since we moved here in 2000 we have had about 10 different renters move into that apartment and all but three have been very nice. But since we never know who we will get I still think the fence was a good investment even though it made a big dent in our budget.
Monte