Blog Worthy Moments: What happened to being neighborly?

We were confronted with an uncomfortable situation this morning with a neighbor. My mom called Scott and said that my dad had seen that one of our neighbors wrote an article in our local paper's stroller column. This is what the article said:

'DOING THE MINIMUM': Paul Eberhart of Boiling Springs is wondering why some people have pets. "I have neighbors who have two adult dogs in a small pen with no shade and is full of dog poop, and the dogs rarely have water," he fumes. He says he called animal control to take a look but was told that nothing could be done, that the owners are doing the minimum required by law. "I just don't get it," he says. "These animals are going to die in the upcoming heat, and there is nothing that can be done?"

We know this neighbor, and we are the only ones he could've been referring to. The part that is the most hurtful, is that he didn't come and talk to us first. Aside from the fact that only one thing in the article he wrote is true, why can't anyone be a true neighbor anymore? If he truly was concerned that our dogs' situation was in such dire shape, then why didn't he come and ask if there was anything he could do to help? Or why if he noticed that they didn't have water, wouldn't he come to the door and say he noticed the dogs were out of water, and thought we might want to fill it up? He is retired and home all day, and obviously has nothing better to do.

The things that were untrue in the article:
1. Do the dogs have shade? Yes, they have a doghouse as well as a little roof covered porch, as well as the shade of the house. When we redid our backyard last Spring and made the pen for them, we took in account the fact that the area where the dogs normally laid in our backyard was right where we made the pen. They liked that area best, because it did provide the most shade in the afternoon with the way the house and the sun sits in the sky. Before they were even confined over there, that is where they spent the majority of their day. Our neighborhood was a new development, in which most of the trees were cut down before building. We only have 2 small trees that we planted in the backyard, and they don't even provide as much shade as the house does on that side of the pen. We thought the whole positioning of the pen through a lot before putting it there, and it was for the dogs' best interest. We are not cruel pet owners, as he makes us out to be.

2. Do the dogs rarely have water? Untrue - my mom actually is the one who normally lets the dogs out in the mornings when she comes over to watch the boys. She fills their water bowl every morning. There may be times when they drink all of it up right away, but we check in the afternoon that they still have water, and refill it, especially on particularly hot days. Both Scott and I work and attend to them when we're home in the evenings. My mom was particularly hurt at this statement, because she does ensure they have water daily. Plus we put them inside our garage at night, where we feed them and give them more water.

3. Are they in a small pen? It could be considered small, but they do not spend 24 hours in the pen. When we are in the backyard, which is usually at least 3 - 4 nights a week or more, we let them out in the main part of the yard with us to run and play ball with them. They get exercise and attention. And as I mentioned before, we do put them inside our garage every night as well. They are well taken care of. Plus, we live in a neighborhood where all of the lots are less than 1/2 an acre. We don't have a ton of land. But the dogs are taken care of in the best situation that we can, given our circumstance. Would they be better off going to the pound and being euthanized?

The only thing that was true in the article:
1. Is the dog pen full of poop? Yes, most of the time it is . . . however, that is the purpose of having a dog pen with cedar pet mulch. So they can go to the bathroom, and cover it up with the mulch if needed, before we clean it up. Most of the time we clean up the poop once a week. There have been weeks that have been busy, when we haven't gotten out there to clean it that often, but the dogs certainly are not walking around on a bed of poop. They go in one corner mainly and then cover it up. The whole reason we made a pen was so the rest of our yard would not be covered in poop or dug up, as our dogs did before we redid the backyard. Do I wish we could clean it up every day? Yes I do. But sometimes other things, like life, take precedence.

Maybe a little neighborly concern could've been shown by talking to us. Maybe if he knew that Scott had been working a full time job plus a part time job for the past 2 years, and didn't always have time to keep the dog pen as spotless as we would've liked. But who is that really hurting? Our dogs are not out roaming the neighborhood, getting into people's trash, like some others in the neighborhood do. Perhaps this guy could've realized that we were strapped for time, and although our dogs were not in any danger from their situation, he could've offered to help us out some, if he really was that concerned. We've had our dogs for 7 years, and I highly doubt that this year we will all of a sudden kill them from our neglect.

Here are some pictures of our dogs in the dog pen around 2 pm this afternoon. You can see the situation. The bowl does still have water in it from when it was filled this morning, by the way. Do they look like they are going to die to you? Scott is going to talk to this neighbor sometime today hopefully. I know he will do it in a tactful way that will hopefully make the neighbor feel as small as we think he should, without degrading him. We will do the neighborly thing and talk to him face to face, not write an article in the paper attacking him, or calling animal control, as he did to us. It is just hurtful and sad to me that people have to be this way.