Warning .....long posting

Four hours ago I took my six month old puppy Loki out for his usual morning walk at 8.15. I like to vary the route we take, though still within three blocks of our house. Coming down a road we have not walked on in some weeks, we stopped to chat to three friendly workmen doing construction work on the pavement. Loki worked his charm & one of them commented on what a well-behaved puppy he was. We crossed onto the other side & walked two houses along, & Loki sat down on the pavement looking up the driveway of the house we were in front of. I thought he was having a quick break, which he does from time to time, or that he might possibly remember the house from some weeks earlier, when a toddler had been crying in the driveway & an older girl of around six had shyly come out to pat the puppy. Loki had been wonderful with this child, lapping up the attention. Or maybe he had a premonition of what was about to happen .......

We were only there for about half a minute, & then I said Let's Go, & Loki obliging got to his feet & we moved off up the street. We had only just passed the next house when I hear shouting behind me, & turned back to see what was going on. A man in his early sixties was walking quickly up the driveway of the house we had stopped in front off, shouting at me, saying "if you let your dog poo on my property, I'll get my shotgun & shoot the *******. I'm allowed to do that." I just stood there, staring at him. I was tempted to shout back that Loki had not pooped on his property or anywhere else, & that he was certainly Not allowed to shoot or threaten to shoot a dog walking passed his house under control of his owner. I was more angry than scared, but I held off saying anything, as I deal with people like this man in my job as a hospital psychiatric nurse, & know how quickly they can go over the edge. So I turned my back on him & started walking away, but then turned my head round to make sure he wasn't following us. I saw him walking quickly into the house next to the one he had come out of, & thought he was going to get a gun, so quickly headed towards the corner of the street, just one house along. As I was heading around the corner, I looked back again & saw the guy walking back to stand at the front of his house, thankfully without a gun ...just staring at us. So I moved quickly round the corner & warned an elderly man walking a Jack Russell not to go into that road. I was quite shaken up by the whole thing & made a mental note never to walk along that road again!

Told my DH when he called from work an hour later & he told me to phone the police & report it, because the guy might flip out & shoot people. So did that. I had to go over it all a total of five times, to five different people & then was told that the guy would probably deny saying it, & then I would have to take him to court. I said that the three workmen proably heard the guy, but they did not seem interested in tracking them down, so I told the police I did not want to take it further & had only let them know in case he goes crazy & starts shooting people in the area, as happened in my own hometown last year, & two young policeman plus a police dog were killed.

Gosh, what is this world coming to when a person cannot walk their friendly six month old puppy around their neighbourhood without some crazy man threatening to shoot their pup. One policeman told me they would have acted immediately if the guy had threatened to shoot me & not my dog. I told the policeman that there was no way I would have allowed that man to aim a shotgun at my puppy without trying to get my puppy out of the way, which would mean that I would probably get shot instead, so what is the difference!

Is it legal for him to have the gun in NZ? Is it true that police officers in your country don't carry guns? What would they have done if he had come out of the house with the shotgun?

Sounds like the guy is a nut. Glad everything is OK.

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Grasslands Liberty Belle "Bella" CGC (5-7-2012)

Oh my, how scary!! I'm glad you're both ok. I'm surprised the police don't pay more attention to people like that considering the world we're living in now.
I were certainly not walk down that road again!

Give Loki a big hug from me ♥

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How scary!

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"In life, the best walks are always too brief."


Gallagher(went to the Rainbow Bridge 08/02/02), and Fozzie's Mom forever!(Fozzie went to the Rainbow Bridge 07/14/12)

Glad you're ok! Please stay off that street & warn others.I'd keep on the Police about it.They shouldn't ignore you, next time could be worse for someone.If you hurt my dog you'll have to hurt me to survive.

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[SIGPIC]Dogs are a gift from God

What a horrible ordeal, glad you are safe ! Very sad that people have such anger pretty sad the police were of no help either.


Sent from Petguide.com Free App

Wow - that's insane. Glad you are okay. Definitely stay away from that block. People are crazy.

I remember when I was young (maybe 10 or 11) and my parents let me walk the dog to the corner - an old lady came out of her house and started yelling at me - telling me she was calling the police on me and they were going to take my dog away because he was peeing on the curb near her house. I ran all the way home crying - then my Mom went nuts on the lady.

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Wow how scary! I would keep on the police. It's possible he wouldn't be able to keep a calm composure with them either, which would give him away. Definitely avoid that house though, not worth the risk however small.

There is a house that I walk by daily that actually has a sign in the yard that used to say "no dogs on the yard". Recently they changed it to "kids yes dogs no"
I've been tempted to collect dirty diapers from friends and dump them in the yard!
I will actually go off of the sidewalk into the street walking past that house in case my dogs wander onto their yard!

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Bear 6/2000-5/27/2012

You did better than me, I'd have probably shot my mouth off at the guy....Glad you are all ok!!!!

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I'm glad that you and your puppy are safe. I would report the offending jerk to the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals or whatever your local equivalent is. Somebody must be able to control this kind of nastiness.

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Lucy, owned by Joker and Sunny, who remember Charlie with me
http://www.goldenretrieverforum.com/...years-old.html