by Delia Cai
Dear Prudence,
My husband “Josh” and I had an ongoing problem with our neighbors. They would let their dog out their front door multiple times every day to relieve itself, and each time the dog always ended up using our front lawn or even the area around our porch as a toilet. We tried speaking with our neighbors about the issue on multiple occasions, but they continued to allow their dog out to go the bathroom on our property. Complaints to the city were useless, even with footage from our porch cam showing the dog eliminating; the neighbors received several warnings and a few negligible fines, and the peeing and crapping at our place continued.
Then an entire day passed without the dog showing up. After I hadn’t seen the dog for several days, I saw a neighbor who knows the couple while I was getting the mail and joked that hell must have frozen over because “the Smiths” seemed to have finally decided to stop their dog from going at our place. The neighbor informed me that the Smiths’ dog had died less than a week ago. When I got back I told Josh, who replied that he had “solved the problem.”
When I asked him what he meant, he admitted to scattering chocolate chips, raisins, and pieces of cookies with macadamia nuts in them in areas of our property where the neighbor’s dog frequented.
Part of me is horrified that he poisoned the dog and is questioning who this man that I married really is. But another part of me is secretly glad we’ll never have to pick up dog shit or hose down urine from our front porch ever again. Is this something that should have me questioning my marriage, or should I just take the win and never bring it up again?
—Canine Conundrum
https://slate.com/advice/2025/01/dear-prudence-dog-menace-chilling.html