Monday, October 03, 2005
The dog behaviourist came on Saturday. She did some work with Sonny, then asked if there was a field nearby where we could do some long leash work. I said I didn't want to walk past that bloke's house but she assured me that he wouldn't say or do anything, and besides she was with us. So off we went. Boy was she wrong. Out the house they came (him and his wife) and started shouting and bawling at us. He kept saying that he was personally going to make sure that the dog was put to sleep and told the behaviourist that she was wasting her time because the dog was going to be dead soon. Ian warned him that if anything did happen to Sonny he would be in trouble (with the police) and the guy started bracing himself shouting "what did you say?" and making threatening advances towards Ian. His wife claimed that her son had been mauled by our dog (he had been nipped through his clothing ... didn't even draw blood) and complained that they hadn't even had an apology. To be honest, if my dog had mauled the boy I'd have taken him to be put to sleep myself immediately. I told her that her husband hadn't even given us a chance to apologise. As soon as we opened our front door to him he started with the bullying and threatening tactics. She said we'd had all week to come and apologise and I said I was steering well clear because he'd behaved like a psycho and frightened me. Then the bloke said to me "just you wait, I'm going to show you what real fear is". The behavourist was trying to reason with them, too, but they wouldn't listen to anything she had to say and told her she didn't know what she was talking about.
I no longer feel safe in my own home. I'm having serious panic attacks and I'm just a bag of nerves. The police should be visiting us again either this afternoon or this evening. Someone advised me to keep a diary of events. These are known as temporaneous notes and are admissable evidence, apparently. Let's face it this guy is going to end up with a civil harrassment case haunting him if this doesn't get sorted soon. We are doing everything above board, and are doing all that can be reasonably expected of us to ensure this never happens again. Having our dog killed for giving the boy some bruises is not reasonable. I will fight the bastard every step of the way.
