We have just moved into our new home in the rural suburbs, and being new, we would like to make a good impression. So I bit my tongue when I found the special gift the large dog next door left for me on my front lawn. Talk about putting your foot in it, there I was wiping my shoe desperately in the snow, and introducing myself to another neighbour the same time. Thankfully he wasn’t the owner of the naughty dog. A few days later I found a white feathered, frozen chicken in the bushes lining my front yard. Cold, and very much dead, the poor desiccated thing had been thrown in there, but I decided to leave it until garbage day.
A few days later, after a heavy snowfall my husband was outside shovelling the driveway when the neighbour with the large dog stopped by to chat. Oblivious to his dog happily wandering all over my front lawn leaving doggy prints in the pristine snow, I glowered at the dog through the office window. The guys talked, I hid behind the blinds in the house willing the dog not to leave any more special gifts for me, and wondered if I would have the nerve to say something if he did. After snuffling through my bushes for a few minutes the dog discovered the dead chicken, and started to chew on it, frozen feathers sticking out of it’s mouth. It coughed them out, and went back to happily munching away while the guys talked over on the driveway.
I debated letting his owner know that his dog was chewing something rather unsavoury, until I thought, no, if he can’t pay attention to his dog, and he’s willing to let it wander all over my front lawn and leave messy gifts… then too bad. Besides, I was in my housecoat, and my hair was a mess. The neighbour finished his conversation, and my husband came inside. The dog obediently trotted over to the neighbour with the dead chicken in his mouth. As the the neighbour, removed the dead chicken, he looked around thinking so where do you throw a dead chicken from your new neighbours yard? Why back onto the new neighbours yard of course. So there is lays, somewhere in the snow bank on the road side edge of our lawn. I am hoping that a neighbour who walks their dog without a leash is surprised one day by what their dog picks up the next time.
And I think we might be looking at fencing the front yard.