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well greg, in theory...... we have loose pits in my neighborhood, 2 chased me down and i didnt know i could still throw this old body into a neighbors pickup bed but i managed it. after a while the dogs left and i did call the police. they told me i was the eleventh call. 2 cops came out, took a report, knocked on the door of the owners. (they were inside, but did not answer the door) same cops who came when the dogs broke into a kennel and killed 7 cats and took the screen door off a house trying to get animals inside. so that was that.. end of story... no action of any kind. these dogs will kill someone and then we will hear "oh my goodness why wasnt something done?" i thought that being a senior citizen might help, and we have alot of little kids in the neighborhood but nope.... no help from the authorities. my husband went on a walk with a machete, he was so mad seeing all my bruises, hoping the animals would go after him but they were smart enough to wait for different prey. several neighbors talked about civil suit, but a humane society personel actually told us we better be careful of retaliation from the dog owners!! what a world ]
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I truly sympathize with your situation. Please tell me though, how giving up on the system changes anything. Vigilante justice may seem like an expedient solution, but really just endangers you in other ways, and probably doesn't change the behavior of the negligent dog owners.
Be persistent, bother the police; then call them again. Get your neighbors to bother the police. Every call you make is on the record and documented as a complaint. Remind the police with each call that when eventually a child is hurt someone will be held accountable.
edit typo
Those are horrible stories and I sympathize. If it happened to me I would not rest until it was recognized as completely unacceptable. I would call up the police chain of command. I would contact Big Island news blog. I would write letters to the editor about how your subdivision is not safe or civilized. The truth is that the average citizen here does not accept that it's OK for dogs to trap people in their homes, kill their domestic animals, and chase people who are walking down the street into the closest pickup truck. That makes it worth a news item, especially if you put all the stories together and show the prevalence.
You get a news story about the police ignoring this and something will happen. But you have to give the police department a chance and reach out to someone at the captain level, at least, with a complaint that the officers did not take it seriously. Oh, and add the concern about retaliation into the story.
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Each and every time you or any of your neighbors call the police, give your name, phone number, and a request for a follow-up call. If no action is forthcoming, I recommend Kathy's suggestion that you start going up the chain of command, but with formal, written complaints. Send them registered mail, return receipt requested.
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quote:
Originally posted by ericlp
What do you guys think of the 'invisible' fence and shock collars? I hear it works well, if your dog is trained right.
It does but is very expensive. I successfully trained my pound rescue, who was scared of her own reflection when I first took her on, in only four days. It won't work on animals that are very hyper and take off running, though. Dell's carries them.
Back to the original post....
I suggest following through with the police--that whole squeaky wheel approach. I am not sure it will work with the association, though, because if they enforce the loose dog situation it would only be right for them to also enforce the no livestock restriction in place for the subdivision.
Don't waste your time with the newspapers or other media outlets. It is not 'newsworthy' in their eyes.
There are little hand-held devices that you can get which throw off a sound frequency that dogs cannot stand, and want to get away from, that you can look into purchasing for preventative measures. It is a shame that we cannot own tazers--only the PD to control us unruly citizens of Hawaii....
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We have also had good luck with the invisible fence shock collar for our timid Lab mix humane society rescue. Amazon.com sells them for much less than on island prices and shipping is free. It will not however keep other animals off your property.
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Chickens and coops are "private property", destruction to private property is a crime, be it by direct human act, remote control vehicle or live stock/pets. Next time the local police fail to respond or give you the “we cannot respond” BS. Tell them you’ll be reporting it to the prosecutor office next and if they still fail to respond - report the incident to the county prosecutor’s office and or file charges for dereliction to duty.
The police have responded to calls regarding barking dogs here in our subdivision (simply barking)… I cannot fathom they would dismiss a destruction to private property call.
E ho'a'o no i pau kuhihewa.
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Hello, first time poster here. I've been avidly reading Punaweb, and am thinking about moving to the BI sometime in the next year.
I just had to respond to this thread as someone who has had trouble with dogs and neighbors before. Eight (!) dogs are not pets, even if they consist of a mother dog and puppies. If they are out and killing things in someone else's yard, that's a pack, and a wild pack at that. As far as I'm concerned, a shotgun blast, one as a warning and then another to kill is in order. No one should have to worry about being attacked by Cujo in their own backyards, and there MUST be laws against having that many dogs on one property, not to mention them getting out and being violent towards other's farm animals. Sad that you have to worry about retribution from the animal's owners rather than actually protect yourselves. Like I said, those were not pets, they were wild animals.
signalfire, as you're considering living here, something to learn is you never assume there MUST be laws here of a certain nature. You find out what the laws are; they may be different than what you assume. Why would there be laws against having eight dogs on agriculturally zoned land? Do you understand what AG zoning means? You should learn that if you plan to move to an ag area.
You can't kill a dog for killing animals on the first offense. The owner is allowed a chance to remediate the situation, confine the dogs, make reparation. If that doesn't happen, then on the second offense there are different remedies.
You would do well to inform yourself of the laws on dogs and guns before you move here, move to Puna, and make sure you can live with them before you commit.
Note: I think a pack of dogs getting loose is frightening and awful, but the fact remains you are not entitled to kill the dog. Further, it's natural for a dog to kill chickens, and that does NOT make the dog CUJO. And if you try to tell local guys their dog is EVIL for going after chickens, they aren't going to respond well. (This owner wasn't local, but if he were.) Macho dogs are a big part of this macho culture; they are a status symbol. They are often not trained well. The owners are not trained any better.
Hawai'i is DIFFERENT from anywhere on the mainland and all of us who move here have cultural acclimation to do. People here cannot abide it when mainlanders move over and talk about how it SHOULD be like this and it MUST be like that. People will very pointedly tell you -- If you don't like it, go back to the mainland. There are very popular bumper stickers that convey this message.
I'm a transplant myself, only passing on what I learned.
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Nothin like bumping a 4 month old stinky thread to stir up more opinions, since there were obviously too few already expressed.
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