This has been a particularly harsh summer so far and whilst we're all having a "hosepipe ban" in some way or another, life has been going on. That includes - unfortunately - also other nuisances like freely roaming dogs. Sadly, these are not even stray dogs. These are dogs, where their owners cannot be bothered taking their dogs for a walk. And they just let them out and let them go for a walk on their own. As a result, you then have dogs scaring your chickens in your garden, pooping in your garden, or your garage, or worse your terrace and front door; and of course no one will clean it up.
In our case the worst offender has been our neighbour, and over the past two years I have pointed out on multiple occasions, that I am not happy about this situation and that the dogs shouldn't be doing that. Without success. I did find of course the corresponding information on the government websites that explained clearly, what is allowed and what not. But since we're talking about a neighbour, I obviously didn't want to slap the paragraphs around their faces right away. So I asked for advice from a local councillor that instantly printed out the legal requirements right away and dropped them off in our letter boxes. In case you are interested in French legal talk, this is the document that was printed out: Peut-on promener son chien sans laisse ?
Fallen on deaf ears
What really annoyed me about the whole situation was, that I asked nicely to look after the dog and explained what the issues were. Without any success.
It got worse when then visitors came to our neighbours with their own dogs that did the same thing. One of the dogs came to our terrace and pissed over our wooden terrace steps. At which point I shouted out that this is unacceptable. Once again, they did not care.
The problem with this is of course, if one dog does it, all other dogs in the village come and sniff and piss over the wooden terrace as well. So I pointed out to them that their friends do that as well, but other than a sorry there was not much to be heard. Certainly no action to be seen.
Security cameras
This got so out of hand, that I started setting up security cameras around the house, including the garden and activated the pet mode. Which meant any animal passing somewhere in the vicinity of our security camera was recorded. An unnecessary strain and more effort for us to sort out the footage, never mind the extra cost and extension of our network capabilities (luckily we are renovating anyway, so it's better done now than later). In the end we found enough footage where the dog was pissing at our tomato plants (with time index etc.) and walking through our garden doing their business. I then wrote a firm yet polite letter - including print-outs of the camera footage - also explaining, that they even walk the dog without interest in the dogs whereabouts, or they even see it pooping in front of our garage but they cannot be bothered picking the shit up and that this is unacceptable. It is our property, they have to respect that and we have a child that wants to play freely without having to worry whether a dog pissed all over it, or in fact we want to be eating our produce without wondering whether the dog pissed all over it. Apart it from being a nuisance, this has now also become a question of hygiene.
Again it was of no help other than awkward silence and ignorance.
What now?
Well, there is not much to be done really, unless I take it one step further. Their dogs still walk around freely, though I noticed that the dogs come less to our house, but of course they now piss and poo against our neighbour's property. The problem is, that the only way to escalate this further, is by reporting and offering proof of further infringements but that also means, as you can guess, quite hefty fines. Is that really a reason to escalate? I would think not, but quite honestly, we're not far from it.
Sadly, it's not just the neighbours. There are other people as well that come around, visitors or tourists which stay in local gîtes or neighbouring villages. Our neighbour already had a discussion with someone who claimed "but this is the countryside, so it's allowed", whilst standing in the centre of a village, on a proper road, surrounded by many houses. It makes you wonder what people consider countryside... I am unaware of how this conversation ended, but it shows how difficult it is to make people understand that, just because it's not Paris or Marseilles with hundreds-of-thousands of habitants, doesn't automatically make everything else that is smaller a countryside. If you are in the forest, on a rugged path, yes, that is countryside (and even there are rules!), but when you are standing in the middle of a village, with a proper road and houses surrounding it and plenty of habitants, well that's not countryside anymore, then you are in an urban area. Just not a big one. The keyword in French is "zone urbaine", which roughly describes a built-up part of a commune where houses, streets and public spaces form a continuous settlement.
What am I trying to tell you?
I don't know, quite honestly. If you are a tourist, keep your dog on a leash, no matter how friendly your dogs are. A really lovely neighbour not long ago, left his adorable dog for a minute unattended and it pooped on our property. He was very apologetic and came back to clear it up. So even the best behaved dogs will once in a while do something, when you're not looking. If your dog is on a leash, at least it cannot freely walk onto other people's property and do stuff there, that they shouldn't.
If you are in the same situation, there is clearly no right way of dealing with it. Clearly it doesn't matter how nice and friendly you are in the beginning. If your neighbours in the village are writing their own set of rules, then in the end, they do what they want. In our case, we are now on non-speaking terms. Sad, but true. This only works of course, if you otherwise have a strong standing in your village. If you yourself feel like an outside, this can be quite a strain.
Anyway, we'll see what time will bring...