Dead Dog?

This morning at 8:30 three my daycare parents along with the city's attorney met with my neighbors and their attorney. They were instructed to try to settle rather than seeing the judge so that is what they did.

Apparently the only dog being considered today was the one offending September 7th. I guess they forgot about the zillions of calls I've made to the animal shelter about the other dogs on the property. Sometimes they've had up to five of them and sometimes more than one was loose at a time. This one chased one of my daycare parents and her children to her car and showed it's teeth at the animal control officer. Bad dog. The owner claims the dog is now dead. The dog that was alive and barking yesterday morning is now dead. Fishy? I can't believe the attorney for the city bought this. nobody else did.

While at city hall one of the witnesses, a daycare parent, called to ask me how many dogs were on the property this morning. I told her I could just see the brown and white pit bull that animal services had complaints on just last Thursday. Seems it was out roaming around disturbing neighbors across the street but when the officer (a daycare parent also) arrived, the dog was on it own property so she could not pick it up, only ask the owner to tie it back up. I did not make that call. I didn't even see it loose. But they get to keep it now.

This dog.

The settlement basically says that that dead dog is not to return to the property in the next twelve months and they are to only have the one dog on the property for the same time period.

I sure wish I had been there to here it for myself. I would have protested when the attorney asked if this was good for everybody. HELL NO it's not good. I can't agree to a settlement based on such an obvious lie just because the attorney wants to settle all his cases before lunch. No way. I would have been happy with the dog owner stating that he has placed the dog in the care of friends or family members with a properly fenced in yard and the dog will not be returning to the property. Now that's reasonable. Instead that lazy lawyer allowed these imbeciles to insult the intelligence of the court and everybody there with this dead dog bullshit. That's just wrong. I'm a bit angry.

One of the daycare parents stopped to get a sub on her way to my house. As she pulled into the driveway there was a little white dog in the carport of the house next door. She grinned and looked at me, I knew she was thinking what I was thinking so I got her the number and I grabbed my camera and we made a report. Ten minutes after the neighbors got home from court the animal control officer was in their driveway. Apparently the woman was a bit irritated at the visit. The dog didn't belong to them (and we didn't think it did but it was loose and at that location thus our report). Apparently there was some talk of harassment charges against my friend and me. Animal services did not find the little white mutt but we have a good picture of it just to keep our butts out of jail!



Of course the report was spiteful but there was a dog loose and as a family childcare provider parents are depending on me to keep their children safe and I take that responsibility very seriously whether the City of Decatur Alabama does or not. You know this aint over!