Trespassers and stray dogs on new property, how to handle

[McGurk]

I would try to figure out where your trespasser lives and pay them a visit and introduce yourself. I know, introverts nightmare! Maybe persuade your spouse to do it or go with you.

I think you’ll get a good read on the situation by meeting face to face. Start out with “Hi, we’re new to the neighborhood and wanted to introduce ourselves. We bought old Mr. John’s property and are going to build a house and barn; we’ll be on the property working on a regular basis.”

Go from there. If they express surprise and say they didn’t know the property had been sold, you can take a softer approach, like “I’m a little concerned about trespassers and stray dogs, but I don’t want to be the person who is new to the neighborhood and puts up a bunch of ‘No Trespassing signs.’ What do you think is the best way to let people know without ticking them off?” If they say, “Yes, we knew the property had sold but we’ve always walked our dogs there.” you might have to take a more aggressive approach.

[dacasodivine]

@eponacelt

For trespassers, if they’re neighbors, I’d suggest getting to know them. Maybe you can allow one or two to walk on your property if they prove trustworthy, and they can become good partners in defending your property against bad actors. It works well in my little enclave.
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I like this idea. Perhaps find the walker and ask this person to keep an eye out for trespassers and/or hunters when walking but to please keep the dogs on leash at all times. Say your dog is dog aggressive or your horses are or whatever. You make a new friend, let it be known loose dogs are unwelcome, and would have someone looking out for hunters or trespassers possibly up to no good.

[Djones]

@dacasodivine

I like this idea. Perhaps find the walker and ask this person to keep an eye out for trespassers and/or hunters when walking but to please keep the dogs on leash at all times. Say your dog is dog aggressive or your horses are or whatever. You make a new friend, let it be known loose dogs are unwelcome, and would have someone looking out for hunters or trespassers possibly up to no good.

I love this approach. We have the blessing of access to over 700 acres behind our place to ride on because we fostered a good relationship with the owners, and they have motocross races there and sometimes a bike ends up in the wrong place (likely it was his grandkids on my land in an earlier post). We’re in the country. Our dogs sometimes go over there and sometimes their dogs are over here. We make it work. He thanks us for keeping an eye on his place (he had someone set up a tent and camp on it for a spell). We thank him for the riding. It’s all beneficial.

[RegentLion]

Hi All!
I don’t have time to respond individually as we’ve been busy building fence and doing other moving prep… work has picked up and I’m swamped there plus my dog had an emergency vet visit where he was hospitalized for 4 days. Turns out composted food can be deadly for dogs! But I did want to give you an update on our situation.

We did talk with the seller, and he’s definitely a man who knows all about what’s happening in the neighborhood! He had some fascinating stories about the past and when we asked if anyone had permission to walk the property, he was able to describe our trespasser to the T although he didn’t recall their name. He said that they’d never granted explicit permission but that he also “wasn’t in the business of kicking people off the property.” So grey area.

We opted to simply post the property, which we did and since haven’t seen anyone walking. If I encounter our trespasser hopefully we can have a simple conversation and go from there.

While I love the idea of allowing a friendly, respectful neighbor to walk our property and be an ally in keeping an eye on things, the issue is that you don’t know who people are until you meet them; and we have no idea what kind of person this neighbor is… and revoking permission after giving it would be hard. Easier to start this way and if things progress to where we’d feel comfortable with them on our property we can grant permission at that time.

[carman_liz]

Can you set in a couple posts with a gate for now? Something to deter people from driving down that driveway/road? Also I haven’t read all the comments and I know it is pricier but no climb fence around the perimeter of where the horses will be may at least keep random dogs and coyotes out. You could always do a strand of electric sticking out from the top of theouter and inner portion of that no climb to deter random people from petting the horses if they do come onto your land. Again it all costs more money though. I hope people for the most part pay attention to the no trespassing signs for you, maybe get signs that say something about the land being monitored by cameras and trespasser photos will be given to local authorities as well?

[carman_liz]

Both of my neighbors dogs come over and poop in my yard!!! It drives me a little nuts…BUT one neighbor is a sheriff, his wife watches out for the yard and us. Two people were yelling at each other at the building/shop kittycorner from us and she texted me, worried it was dh and I lmao. She wanted to make sure I was ok and she could call her hubs that was on duty at the time. I called her laughing hysterically to let her know that no, it was not us, and if anyone would need help it would be my dh in that situation, not me hehehehe.

The other neighbor, my daughter plays with their grand daughter, mom is never around, thebkid spent mothers day with us and told me she wished her mom played with her like I do with my daughter, dad is a piece of work, mid 30s, lives and home and we have heard has meth issues but he is always respectful to us and the kids only play at our house

Both dogs leave me and the horses alone, my dog and outdoor cat get along with them, and the few times my lab has broken his leash he heads straight to their houses and they just leash him up and call me to let me know. So I deal with the dogs visiting. Pick my battles, and their poop!

[Ambitious_Kate]

@Libby2563

I guess your neighbor doesn’t see the irony in trespassing for the purpose of posting “no trespassing” signs?

If it were me, and I am clearly a curmudgeon, so take that into account, I would be sorely tempted to post the opposite side of every tree he posted with “our” no tresspassing signs. Just for the fun of it, and set up some game cams to watch his reaction.

[Old_Bat]

I’ve been known to catch dogs roaming on our pasture and spray a bullseye on them with kid’s hair paint and then chase them out. We usually don’t see them again.