Dog poop, humility, and loving your neighbor

We have some fabulous neighbors and it's easy to love them.  One of our neighbors bakes a cherry pie for Adam each year and brings the kids birthday presents.  One neighbor leaves clippings and extra bulbs for planting on her curb to share with others.  Several neighbors are excellent at driveway chats.  Two kids down the street love to play with Claire and Paul while I talk with their mother.  Yesterday morning, our neighbor across the street who uses a cane and walks only half a block at a time, came all the way over here to deliver a cute watch he had found for Claire.
And then we have the "loose dog house" neighbors.  The neighbors that no matter how many times you tell them politely or rudely in person, no matter how many times animal control is called, no matter what, their dogs always seem to get loose and come poop in our yard.  This isn't new and it's something we've struggled with since we moved to the neighborhood, eight years ago.  I realize that when our biggest complaint of the entire neighborhood is that a dog occasionally comes and poops in our yard that we have it better than most, but it's still annoying.
Tuesday night I was packing and moving furniture and toys for the 1,000th time since March and I was hot and grouchy.  The dogs started going crazy barking and the kids realized we had a "loose dog" pooping in our yard.  I ran out and started yelling at the dog, chasing it back home and popping my apron at him.  Once I chased the dog to his home, one of the owners came out and apologized profusely.  She even offered to come clean up the poop.  I shrugged, took a deep breath and headed home, muttering all the way.  I even complained to another neighbor, "We've had eight years of this!"
I got back to moving stuff, making dinner, and supervising showers when the doorbell rang.  The loose dog house neighbor was at the door with a pooper scooper!
"I'm sorry to bother you," she said.  "But I can't find where the dog pooped.  Can you show me?"
I went outside and found it for her.  She apologized several times while picking up her dog's poop.  My anger diffused, I told her she had humbled me.
Events like this happen often to me.  Just as soon as I, judge of all people, decide that I don't/won't like someone, that they are not redeemable in my eyes, they do something that changes everything.  Just at the moment I have made my mind to hate, grace comes streaming in.
Even when I stamp my foot, love wins.  Every time.

Captain Midnight Sugar Dot Express Boyette?

Yesterday I was driving the kids and Kaa and Big Paul (Adam's godparents) home from basketball practice when we saw an elderly lady standing on Granbury Rd. crying.  That's a major road in Fort Worth, so we were trying to figure out what was wrong.  Then we saw a tiny black Chihuahua dodging cars.
The dog was running fast, and we followed him with the car, but when he crossed the street, I pulled over and started chasing him.  Kaa said it looked like I was a track star.
Traffic stopped and I chased the dog across Granbury and down the railroad tracks.  I finally cornered him under a bush and then Big Paul appeared to help.  With the help of a leash from a neighbor, and a few bites, we got a hold of the dog.  I was so happy to help a little old lady get her precious baby back.
Panting as if it was our last breath, we walked the dog back toward the elderly woman.  Turns out, she was gone.  Apparently it wasn't her dog at all, but she was the first one to nearly hit the dog with her car and she was upset.
So now we're hunting for the owners of a precious black Chihuahua, whom the kids have named Captain Midnight Sugar Dot Express Boyette.  We've been to Petsmart and verified he does not have an ID chip.  We've been to the local vet who doesn't recognize him.  We've posted signs around the neighborhood.  I can't say that we are looking forward to finding his owners, because we've grown attached.  If there's a family looking for him, we'd be glad to return him, but if there's not, he's got a home here.

Loose Dogs! Again

We love our neighborhood. It's so quiet and friendly, with one exception. The neighbors across the street have at least seven dogs, and they let them run loose regularly. It frustrates me and infuriates Adam. So what do you do when your neighbors let their dogs run loose and the dogs come poop in your yard and bark and growl at you and your children? First we tried to be neighborly. We'd alert the family that their dogs were loose and chase them back home if possible. When that wasn't effective, Adam went over one day and told them their dog had just pooped in our yard and he expected them to come clean it. The lady said, "Sure, I'll be right over!" Then she got in her car and drove off. Adam scooped the poop and returned it with a note to their front porch. When that didn't change the situation, we called Animal Control. "Sure, we'll be right there to pick the dogs up," they said. Unfortunately Fort Worth is a big city and they always have other calls more pressing than ours. The dog catcher has never been able to catch these dogs. When that didn't work, we decided to approach the situation from a legal standpoint. We knew for a fact that they had more dogs than the city allows. We called code compliance and they sent an officer out to investigate. The neighbors claimed that not all the dogs lived at the house, that some of them were "just visiting." They didn't get a ticket, just a warning. And believe it or not, that didn't fix the problem, either. So last week when Adam was home and the dogs were out again, he got angry and called Animal Control again. They suggested that we start documenting the problem with pictures and go sign an affidavit. Supposedly this will cause the neighbors to receive a citation and will fix our problem. So here's a picture of a loose dog in our driveway. Unfortunately this is their cute, fluffy, and friendly dog, and not the giant menacing ones. We'll see if this makes a difference.