My contribution is a combination dumbass and neighbor from hell.
I don't remember this incident but when I was little, my family had two guard dog-trained GSDs - Rambo, a brown with black saddle male, and Phantom, a black female. They were also our family pets and I have fond memories of cuddling on their dog bed with them on cold mornings, fetch, playing poolside and more. I remember putting bright cone birthday hats on them for my b-day parties and dressing them up for holidays...
*sniff* I miss them. *sniff*
They were good with other animals too - our rescued Maltese, a standard poodle, and several rescued cats - but not with Rocky, our African grey parrot, who they would try to eat. We could never agree on whether they were good with rabbits and finally decided that Peter's death was from playing too rough, not an attack, but it wasn't safe to leave the dogs alone with them. Rambo was terrified of Wilbur, our pot bellied pig but Phantom could care less. Their partner in crime was Bambi, a Nubian goat that learned how to unlock the gate on our fence. The trio escaped and explored our neighborhood unsupervised half a dozen times before we finally figured out that Bambi was responsible - not human carelessness or equipment malfunction - and started using a combination lock. Almost everyone in the neighborhood thought it was hilarious because the dogs and goat really would stay together as they explored.
My mom bred GSD back then so these dogs had decent lineages and conformation, and great health and joints so when we had a litter, my mom advertised the pups in the paper. (I was 4 or 5 years old at the time.)
Some fool woman came by when we weren't there and decided she just had to see the puppies right then. We had left them all outside since the weather was great and the babies weren't housetrained (big yard, kennel, shade, water bowls, etc). She climbed our 8-foot tall privacy fence (knocking one of our "beware of dog" signs down in the process) before snooping around our backyard.
Both dogs were very protective over the pups. I wasn't even allowed near the puppies without one of my parents being with me and Phantom had nipped Bambi for getting too close.
Of course, the tresspasser was bitten. Several times, in fact.
According to her statement in the police report, she didn't manage to get within twenty feet of a baby and ignored Rambo and Phantom's "very clear warning signals" because "dogs love her."
She was bitten several times (but not mauled or anything like that) before she managed to climb into Bambi's pen. She stayed there, shouting for help for about thirty minutes before our elderly, mean, dog-hating neighbor peeked over the fence and reluctantly called us and 911.
I say "reluctantly" because Phil wanted to shoot Rambo and Phantom instead but the woman talked him out of it. He had threatened to kill them several times in the past after Bambi opened our gate so they could all explore. Phil swore he'd kill both dogs if they ever set foot on his lawn again. (When we weren't around, he'd go up to the fence and taunt the dogs, then video record their loud vicious barks and call the cops with noise complaints and claims that he feared for his safety. A neighbor across the street (who was planning on getting a rottweiler) videotaped Phil taunting them to show that the loud barks Phil had recorded were proof that Phil was a dog-hating bastard, not proof that we were inconsiderate neighbors or irresponsible dog owners. (He was probably gathering evidence to defend the accusations Phil would one day make against his dog.)
The woman didn't press charges but Phil tried to get our dogs labelled as vicious and put down for attacking someone. He passed a petition around the neighborhood that only the new couple on the block who didn't know us or our dogs signed. The cops convicted Phil of lying on/falsifying a police report (or something like that) since his noise complaints were set-ups, and fined him, which made him hate us (and the neighbor across the street who by now was the proud new owner of a rottie pup) more.
Phil managed to get some sort of hearing in court where a judge listened to evidence. Pretty much the whole neighborhood, and the woman who been bitten came out to support us. The judge decided that our dogs weren't vicious or a threat to public safety and Phil had to pay for everyone's court costs or was fined for wasting the courts time or something like that.
As a sidenote, the woman admitted her actions were pretty dumb and was very sorry about the trouble it caused for us. We ended up selling her a puppy.
kind of hard to take pictures by yourself
