Concern for my dog.

Shauny0160

I have a 10 month old Staffy x who loves to play out in the garden. Over the last few weeks our neighbours children, one around 6 yrs and the other around 3 yrs have been playing out every day in their garden. I have no issue with this and understand that children will be children at times. My issue is that the oldest child is throwing balls, paintbrushes, lolly sticks, chalk and various small plastic toys over our fence. At first we just threw them back over but we are finding this has began to be a daily occurrence. We have to check our garden before we can let the dog out. I had a word with the father and asked politely if he would have a word as we were worried what might happen if our dog chewed any of any of these plastic toys, which he has, and swallowed them causing him an injury. The father said he had already told them about throwing things over but would have a word. Since then it has been one thing after another being thrown over and I have since asked again for them to stop. I have now stopped throwing things back and have a nice collection building up. If my dog does swallow anything and ends up at the vets can I claim any vets fees from my neighbour?

hb2

This must be very worrying for you, but I doubt that you would be able to claim from the neighbour if anything happens to your pooch (unless the neighbour does the decent thing and offers to contribute to your costs). I'm afraid the best I can suggest is some physical barrier between your dog and next door - be that a higher fence (maybe some type of netting so that it doesn't fall foul of regs?) or allowing pooch only into an area of your garden that is out of throwing range.

ladyholly

Does your dog have a leave it command that you can use if he/she does get hold of anything. Unfortunately for you staffies love to chew (at least I have never had one that doesnt) but if you can teach them to leave things it does help.

sheramber

 I would be looking at a way of preventing things coming into the garden as this is likely to be an ongoing problem with summer coming and the ages of the children.
Can you put up a higher fence or fix some netting to the top of the fence?

elsien

Children are 3 and 6 and dad's "had a word?".  Is there a mum around and is there any chance of getting any more sense from her.
I have a bullie who's been quite poorly from chewing and swallowing little plastic bits. If you don't notice, they can deteriorate very quickly and it can kill them. In your position I'd be forgetting about who might pay for any potential vets bills and just make sure my dog is safe. 

Artytarty

I too would have another word with dad! And since you can't speak to the children directly, I think I'd be many some kind of card for them from -"dogs name- saying how he love to play outside but might get sick if he is fed bad things. Maybe a promise that they can give him something nice  time is right.