CHL vs. Pit Bull in Denton, TX

[drinks]

I am fortunate, I live in a county with a no animals off leash unless in the owners yard ordinance, property owners are advised to shoot , shovel and shut up about any loose animal on their property, Also any animal without a collar and rabies tag is fair game if on your property.
The rabies tag part is something everyone should worry about, there is a lot of rabies around, not as bad as several years ago when the state dropped baits with vaccine in them over about 1/2 the state, but there is still plenty around and you very much do not want to take the course of shots, especially not your wife and kids, too.
I shoot on sight any dog or cat on my property that is not collared and tagged and if it is a neighbors animal I know, I tell the neighbor about it and ask them to keep their animals on their property, saying I might not recognize it next time.
Collared and tagged unknown animals have one free pass, the second time they are SSS!

[AEA]

SHOTS FIRED!

At 0730 this morning I was greeted in my back yard by 4 Pit Bulls! I brought out the paintball marker and opened up on them. I managed to hit two of them while they were running away. I called the Sheriff's Office who said they would inform the Animal Control Officer (didn't even know they had one) who may call me or come by when he is in the area.........great.........

Looking like I need to change the antifreeze in my car,..........oh,....and buy some steaks too........

[tallmike]

SHOTS FIRED!

At 0730 this morning I was greeted in my back yard by 4 Pit Bulls! I brought out the paintball marker and opened up on them. I managed to hit two of them while they were running away. I called the Sheriff's Office who said they would inform the Animal Control Officer (didn't even know they had one) who may call me or come by when he is in the area.........great.........

Looking like I need to change the antifreeze in my car,..........oh,....and buy some steaks too........

You have the legal right to shoot them (with the shotgun, not the silly paintball gun) while they are on your property but you do not do it. If you poison them you will get in trouble, if you shoot them you will not. Just shoot them and be done with it.

Once you kill the first one the owners will realize its important for them to keep the rest of them behind a fence.

[KaiserB]

I think you should get some wood or something and paint it hot pink and put it in the holes in your neighbors fence and see how long it takes them to fix it, Or if it were me the dogs would have been dead along time ago.

Then the neighbor would never repair the fence as you patched the holes for him

[AEA]

Animal Control called me and is on the way out. Of course the dogs are back on their own property now.
I am going to ask the Animal Control Officer to make contact with the owners and determine if the dogs have had their Rabies Vac's and if not, I want them impounded. I am almost positive they are not vaccinated.

[AEA]

You have the legal right to shoot them (with the shotgun, not the silly paintball gun) while they are on your property but you do not do it. If you poison them you will get in trouble, if you shoot them you will not. Just shoot them and be done with it.

Once you kill the first one the owners will realize its important for them to keep the rest of them behind a fence.

Well, I really don't want to kill them unless I have to. You would think that a pet owner who finds paintball paint on his dogs would get the idea that maybe he should keep them penned up and not allow them to roam or they might not come back someday..........

That was my thought when I bought the paintball gun in the first place......

[Texian]

Had I been armed at the time it would have been with a .45 ACP and if I could hit it in the head, it would be a "one shot" stop.

[The Annoyed Man]

You keep paint ballin' 'em, and eventually those dogs will learn: A) that it doesn't hurt that bad*; and B) that you're the source of their pain and must be destroyed. Then what are you going to do? You will have taught them that. Pit bulls are smart dogs, and they learn quickly.

(* Back in California, when we first got our dog, we had a problem keeping her contained in the yard. She got out all the time. We finally tried using one of those systems with a buried wire which triggers a shock collar if the dog gets too near the fence - which she was able to climb over, despite it's height. After a brief "learning" period, our 1/2 pit bull figured out that the shock only lasted long enough for her to get over the fence, and then the pain stopped. We turn up the system's sensitivity, which meant that it started to shock her from a greater distance from the fence. She adapted and learned to absorb the increased pain. It went on like that until we could no longer use the system because the shock would start at the dead center of the yard, and there was no longer any point in it. At each level, she learned to absorb the pain in order to get what she wanted, which was to be out of the yard. Pit Bulls are like that. It turns out that a sturdy fence/wall of sufficient height was the only thing capable of containing her, because any pain it cost her was transitory. Think about that when you shoot your paintball gun at those dogs.)

I would warn the owner, "the next time I find one of your dogs in my yard, I am going to exercise my lawful right and shoot it." Then, if necessary, you actually follow through and shoot one of his dogs the next time you find it in your yard. When the owner complains (and being fundamentally irresponsible, he likely will), just say "I warned you several times, complained other times, and I fixed your fence that you were too irresponsible to fix. You've got nobody to blame but yourself."

Like you, I really don't want to shoot a dog if it can be helped, but you are having to deal with a dog owner who is recalcitrant and irresponsible about his dogs. He has failed to learn any other lessons in life, except the lesson that he doesn't have to be responsible because others will keep cleaning up after him, and so far, none of those cleanups have actually cost him anything. When you fixed his fence for him, you reinforced that mindset. For such a person, pain and/or loss are the only teaching implements useful for modifying their behavior, because intelligent reasoning and responsibility are beyond their natural capacities. They are like a paramecium. They don't think. They just swim away from the pain.

Thus, you have two fundamental choices. One is to pursue actions that enable him to preserve the status quo, which will have no effect on his mindset because they don't cost him anything. The other is to pursue actions that cost him in some painfully tangible ways and will make him shrink from the pain, thereby changing his behavior. Your local police agency seems either disinterested or incapable of fixing the problem for whatever reason. Your local animal control will "get there when they get there," but the odds that they'll get there when the dogs are running loose are not so high. In any case, the situation is plainly not going to be given the attention it needs from authorities until the dogs actually savage another person. Who will that person be? You? Your wife? A neighbor's child? Which life is worth more? The dog's, or another person's?

I like rattle snakes. I think they are really neat creatures. I like to observe their habits in the wild, and if I run into one on a trail, I give it a suitably wide berth, respect it, and enjoy watching it. But if I find one in my back yard, I'm going to get the hoe and cut its head off. Those dogs are potentially far more dangerous, and more importantly, unpredictable than any rattle snake. Given your situation, I wouldn't tolerate their presence one more time. I would act.

[bryang]

I would warn the owner, "the next time I find one of your dogs in my yard, I am going to exercise my lawful right and shoot it." Then, if necessary, you actually follow through and shoot one of his dogs the next time you find it in your yard. When the owner complains (and being fundamentally irresponsible, he likely will), just say "I warned you several times, complained other times, and I fixed your fence that you were too irresponsible to fix. You've got nobody to blame but yourself."

...very good advice! I lived out in the country and, of course, there were no laws in regards to dogs running lose. My neighbor on the left (1/4 mi) had several "large" dogs. Two of them were part wolf and looked the part, too. He had problems keeping his dogs in his yard... well, my neighbor on the right, about the same distance from me had told him several times (myself included) if he didn't keep his dogs inside his fence he would shoot it. Sure enough, the guy next door shot the wolf. The guy that own the wolf called the Sheriff and when he finally did get out there the LEO told the guy that there was nothing he could do...you were warned and you should have keep the dogs in your yard!

-geo

[SD4]

There are a lot of posters in this forum that are more tolerant that I believe I would be. Don't get me wrong -- I love dogs. I also understand that there are breeds that are not as domesticated as a Labrador, and no matter what breed a dog is, there needs to be a responsible owner that takes care of that dog.

When I was a kid (probably 7 or 8), we had a neighbor a few doors down that had two large, mean dogs, and they would get loose all the time. I learned to stay away from them when I saw them, but one day I found myself backed up against a fence with one of them about 10 feet away slowly walking to me and barking. I was scared to death and thought I was about to become a big can of Alpo. I ended up bolting towards my house, but it didn't end up running after me.

I don't think I'd have any problem shooting an aggressive dog. Just the other day, I was at a friend's house helping him work on his car when a doberman walked right into the garage. We both stood up and shewed the dog out. If it had turned aggressive, we were right by the door to go inside, but if we didn't have that quick escape route and it wanted to buck up to us, it would be a different story.

[tboesche]

TODAY!- Go to your neighbor and politely inform him that the next time one of his dogs gets into your back yard, that you will shoot said animal. You will also call animal control to come and retrieve the carcass and have the bill sent to the dogs owner.

[austin]

If you are actually intent on killing a dog, a shotgun is your best choice with 00 buck.

One of our SWAT officers shot a charging Pit Bull with a shotgun and 00 Buck. The dog was about 4 or 5 yards away and coming straight on toward him when he shot it. The dog yelped, ran right by the officer before he could even cycle the slide for another shot and then ran straight into the APC that the SWAT team had just deployed from. The dog sat there licking itself until an animal control officer arrived to capture it. Dog went to the pound and survived (for a few days anyway).

A 12 guage slug works wonders on a charging dog. Or just about anything else for that matter.

[Rex B]

TODAY!- Go to your neighbor and politely inform him that the next time one of his dogs gets into your back yard, that you will shoot said animal. You will also call animal control to come and retrieve the carcass and have the bill sent to the dogs owner.

If he's in the County as he says, I doubt Animal Control will retrieve a dead carcass.
I'd shoot him and throw it back over the fence.

Or do like a friend did, and take the carcass to the owner's front door, say "Here's your dog, you owe me $47.50 for the chickens he killed".

[phoneguy]

So, now I don't know what I am going to do. Continue to use the paintball marker and run them off as necessary, or bring out the 870 and do some damage. The property is in the country and there is no animal control to call. The Sheriff's office has known about the original Male Pit Bull running loose and has told the neighbors to just kill it next time it is out and nothing will be done.

I knew the Grayson County Sheriff when I worked for a local TV station a few years ago. (Actually I knew both Jack Driscoll and Keith Gary). Sheriff Gary is a good man, and runs a good SO. I had to draw on a local Rotweiller a few months ago, (not in Grayson Co., I now live in South Texas). He got out of his house when the wind blew the door open, and came into my yard and threatened my wife. When I heard her scream (she was working in the flower bed, on her knees and looked up to see a 150lb Rottie snarling at her), I grabbed my Beretta 96 and ran out the front door. I was ready to shoot when the dog backed down, then proceeded to run around the neighborhood, marking his territory in everyone's front yard, until one of the neighbors that knew the dog and the family showed up and corralled the dog and his littermate back into the house. The guy never found out how close he came to losing a dog, but I would not hesitate to shoot a dog if he was in my yard and was a threat. Save the paintball gun for capture the flag.

[phoneguy]

TODAY!- Go to your neighbor and politely inform him that the next time one of his dogs gets into your back yard, that you will shoot said animal. You will also call animal control to come and retrieve the carcass and have the bill sent to the dogs owner.