Aggressive dog next door.......

Question
What would you do if you saw your next door neighbor's dog get ahold of their own child and shake it like a rag doll???  The child is 5 years old. The neighbor did install an invisible fence and the dog is respecting the boundaries. However, the neighbor's/dog owner were not home to witness the incident and are not responsive when we try to tell them what happened. We live in a neighborhood filled with children and they play in that yard and the dog has tackled many of them, but the shaking of this child that we witnessed has shaken us up and we along with the rest of the neighborhood will NOT let our children back in the yard.  The dog is a Doberman/Lab mix.  Any suggestions???

Answer
Hi Jessica,

Thank you for writing to me and thank you for being a caring citizen.  I am going to give you some advice but keep in mind that the problem in all this is the owner and not the dog.  Children should never be left unattended with a dog, no matter how trustworthy the dog might seem.  They are still animals and therefore unpredictable under certain circumstances.

The first thing you should do is keep a camera handy so that you can document what is going on.  

The next thing is to call Child Protective Services and report that a minor is being left home alone and that the child is not even in the house but out in the yard.  Don't put a lot of emphasis on the dog at this point although you can say that the family dog is allowed to play roughly while the child is home alone and unsupervised.  Express your concern for the welfare of the child and lack of supervision on the part of the parents.

You can also mention that neighborhood children play in the yard without parental supervision and that although there is nothing wrong with the dog the level of rough play is of concern.  At no point do you want to endanger the life of the dog...your goal is to get those parents to become more responsible and protective.  You can always escalate your complaint at a later time or if you feel that the authorities aren't taking you seriously.

As long as the other parents are bonded together and will not let their children play in that yard, this will keep all the children safe..except the one child that lives in that house.

You can also download information from the internet about the dangers of leaving children unattended with dogs and anonymously mail it to your neighbors.

Please keep me posted. I am very curious as to what the outcome of this will be.  CPS takes reports very seriously.

Best of luck,
Shelley Davis