I thank you all for the comments, and for looking at the site.
Catmandu, I am not a litigious person but I understand your feelings. The owner of that dog never controlled it at all, and it was a mean, mean, dog - a rottweiler mix. It roamed at will, and on my walks I sometimes encountered it far from home. The night that it killed Thunder Paws, I went over to the owner's house but he had gone to bed. A young lady who was staying there told me that she would tell him and I told her to be certain that he got in contact with me the next day. He didn't, and everytime I would go by that house, a short distance down the street, and see that dog and it's black lab cohort, I would seeth. The dog would come charging; growling, snarling and snapping. I actually wanted it to attack me, but when I would turn toward it, I think it knew how angry I was and it would back away.
Then one day it charged into our yard again after Royce, but Royce scampered up a tree before the dog could get him. I then went to neighbor's house and banged on his door and he claimed the girl never told him and that this was the first he had heard of it and he would keep that dog either tied up or in the house from that day forward. He kept his word for two days, and then the dog was out again. It soon attacked my next door neighbor's dog in its yard (an even bigger dog, but gentle, not a threat to any creature, and nearly blind).
We then teamed up, and again, the other fellow said he would keep the rott (and the black lab) restrained. Again, he did so for about two days. At this point, I drafted a letter, gave him a copy, and hand-delivered the other to the Borough's animal control. There had been other complaints about the dog and they gave him an ultimatum, that if there was one more complaint that dog was gone.
Again, he kept it restrained for two days, and then it was all over the neighborhood. Again, I went to his and I was seething. He took the dog away, and had it destroyed. As much as I hated that dog, I never sought that; I only wanted it to be restrained, and kept where it could do no one any harm.
He still has the black lab. He kept it restrained for about two weeks, but no longer does. It is an ill-dispositioned dog, but without the rott I do not think it is really much of a threat.
As I once mentioned on COTD thread, the three youngest of the cats who live here are all house cats, but the older two, Royce and Clyde, are set in their ways and come and go at will. They are both savvy out there - Clyde is 13, Royce is 11. Yet, no cat was more savvy than Thunder Paws. Whenever he went outside, he would step onto the porch, stand there, sniffing the air and scanning the entire horizon around him, looking for the dangers. He knew the dangers, was very aware of them, but could not be restrained; he had things he wanted to do in life. He would tear holes in screens and he was damn smart about figuring out how to open doors and would even slide closed windows open.
If he had had thumbs, there was nothing that Thunder Paws couldn't have done. He was truly a thinking cat.
I do not feel it is fair to the younger cats to restrict them to the house, but I do, anyway - although we do take Pistol on car rides, he being a good car cat - and sometimes I take Jim Slim Many Toes out briefly on a leash.
He never wants to come back in.
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