Recently, I answered my door to a knock from a neighbor. She had noticed that we have chickens in our backyard and was wondering if the lost chicken in her yard was ours. It was not, but I immediately volunteered to help her scan the neighborhood and see if it belonged to anyone else. We walked around for maybe 10 or 15 minutes, knocking on doors and approaching people to see if it was theirs.

I remembered a house a few blocks down that had chickens. Although it was a little far, I thought maybe one had escaped from there. This house does not have a fence anywhere around its yard, and I have seen the chickens pecking around in the grass a few times.

As we approached the front door, making it about halfway up the unfenced lawn, we were angrily greeted by a woman coming out of the house yelling, “Nope, I have a Malinois!” To which I responded, “Calm down. This lady found a chicken, and we’re just seeing if you lost one.” She then made some remark about how she was sure she hadn’t and ran outside to check. We made a quick escape so as not to have her dog sicced on us for being neighborly.

It’s not like we approached a fenced-in yard with a “Beware of Dog” sign that we totally ignored, or that we looked menacing in any way. We were two women, decades apart in age — myself dressed in mud-covered rain boots — slowly approaching. Not looking very scary, most likely.

I understand that these might be strange times we live in, but maybe dial it back just a little bit and don’t threaten to sic your dog on somebody just because they’re walking up to your house. And if you have what you assume is a vicious dog running around in an unfenced yard in a residential neighborhood, shame on you. If you can’t control your dog and you let it run around in an unfenced yard, then you are asking for that dog to attack a person who is simply walking down the road. I am afraid for any mail carrier or delivery driver who steps foot onto your property. Watch out, anyone selling Girl Scout cookies!

It’s a scary time we live in when you can’t even try to be a good neighbor and see if someone might have lost something important to them.

Sarah Irvin
Springfield

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