I never said we didn't. You apparently have implied that he was NEVER muzzled - I call that being catty, or bitchy, take your pick.

Ah right, I see, thanx for the clarification. I agree with you about it not being their fault, of course they are perfectly entitled to walk past our back garden without a 45 kilo dog launching himself at their lab. I am just making the point to address Kylr's point I think it was that somehow they didn't know that Ben is DA. (Before She walked across our drive). They have known for the past 2 years from the first day we had Ben of all his issues, I made sure they did. But they are not true doggy people, so clearly they did not understand the implications of what I was saying. I just think they could have taken slightly more care when entering our property.

My words were specifically "in the past" - not sure how that could be interpreted as saying he is never muzzled nowadays.

No it is not a shared driveway it does not belong to them in any way, it is not shared ownership. It is OUR driveway, our responsibility for maintenance, keeping it clean, clear, respecting their right to access etc. etc. And of course, it is true, safe passage. It is not fair that She walked across our drive with her 2 on the lead, and she had to suffer Ben pouncing on the black lab. Incidentally, there wa sno injury whatsoever on this occasion, it was just sound and fury, usual pistols at dawn stuff. I have said it before and I will say it again, you do not walk onto someone else's property with your 2 dogs when you can see that there are 2 loose dogs on that property, it just is not a sensible thing to do. It is not sufficient to say "I can do it because I can", we all have to take responsibility for our actions, and she needs to take partial blame for this incident, seemingly trivial, but which stuck in Ben's mind to the point where he risked a broken leg to jump over a fence that no other dog has ever done before.

But there is always going to be a time isn't there when any dog that is now muzzled is not going to have been at some point in the past - unless he was born muzzled!!

The point here is that we saw we had to muzzle him, he was muzzled.

Of course they should!! If you walked into the GSD's garden next door to us, with him barking his head off at you, and you got bitten, that would be your own stupid fault!! And it is their responsibility as intelligent human beings NOT to walk across OUR drive when our 2 are louting around on OUR drive whilst we get them in from the car to the house. She could see we had our arms full with beer and wine, and the dogs were louting around boxing each other as they often do. It really would have been the RESPONSIBLE thing for her to do to wait, or call out to us. Sorry, I totally disagree with what you are saying.

No, my point was that they did know that he is DA, and they knew that you know he's DA. It is not like this has come out of the blue, you have knowingly let a DA dog off-lead in an area where you know other dogs pass through (well within their rights). That would annoy me even more than if I didn't know about the dog's problems or didn't know that the owner was aware.

It may not have been the most sensible but it certainly does not place fault onto her for your dog's actions. What if she had stopped and Ben had run up to them anyway? You have had many issues with his recall before and you say that in this instance he ran over to them too. Should she have run back to her own garden before Ben had a chance to catch up, would it still have been her fault had she hovered at the edge of the drive?
If it was dark, maybe she hadn't seen your two loose ont he drive either and, like I would, assumed that your known DA dog was safely secured elsewhere.

If I had a garden with a "right of access" path through it for neighbouring houses to use (as some do, unusual but it happens) and a neighbour walked through my garden - as they have the right to - and got bitten by my GSD, even if he was barking his head off first, of course it would be my fault! A sensible person may heed the barks as warning but if they are legally entitled to cross my property then it is my responsibility to ensure they cannot get bitten. The neighbours are perfectly within their rights to cross the driveway and therefore it's not a case of "what happens on MY driveway is YOUR fault for trespassing!".

Lunch break way past ending guys, thanx to all for your helpful comments and advice.x gnasher

There's a lot of going over what has been said and done in the past. The fact is we can not alter the past and for Gnasher its about how to proceed in the future.

By taking ownership of the situation and ensuring that it can't happen again she has done what she can IMO. It doesn't mean the neighbour will let bygones be bygones but equally its not acceptable behaviour to make offensive comments to others in the neighbourhood either.

What the neighbour needs to know is that she understands she is angry and she understands that she has a right to be angry but she does not have a right to be vulgar and offensive as well.

Lack of commonsense on the neighbours part. I wouldnt give a crap if I turned up at my house and Ben was sat in my front room having a cup of tea la de dah uninvited I still wouldnt walk in with my boy (i have every right to come in and go freakin skitso its my house right?) and put my boy in harms way.

Forget the neighbours am sure you have more than enough people to hang out with.

Change the things you can, accept the things you cant and have the wisdom to know the difference.

N On the insurance front, (i know it does in mine) do you have to report the incident to them? Dont know whether people ever do but it could invalidate your cover?