FOR Southern Californians at odds with their neighbors, the source of the problem is often simple: It barks night and day, pees on your flowers, poops on your lawn. It escapes from its yard to terrorize cats and terrify kids.
Of all the ills that beset the urban scene, the domesticated dog would seem least likely to offend. Man's best friend, and all that. Yet here in L.A., it is a reason friendly neighbors turn hostile to one another, a wedge that reduces peaceful coexistence to anger, and sometimes war.
Last month someone tossed poisoned food into the backyard of a West Hollywood house with two dogs. "The little one, Giant, used to bark endlessly. The big one, Baby, you never heard," says a maintenance man who works next door and who loved Baby. The perpetrator, believed to be a neighbor irritated by the barking, tried to silence Giant but killed Baby instead. The worker next door, who asked that his identity not be revealed out of fear of retribution, has posted signs on Orlando Avenue asking neighbors for help finding who took the life of his canine friend.
An extreme case, perhaps, but hardly unprecedented. In North Hollywood early this month, police arrested a man on suspicion of trying to silence a noisy boxer by tossing meatballs laced with rat poison into the yard.
As Los Angeles grows, disputes over dogs are expected to get only more prevalent. County animal control officials say they do not tabulate canine complaints separately, but anyone who listens to the rants of dogless neighbors or sees the militant don't-poop-here signs on front lawns can't help but sense a growing rift over what some see as a four-legged nuisance.
No authoritative count of the local dog population exists because more than half are believed to be unlicensed. But Michelle Roache, deputy director of the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care & Control, estimates the number to be at least 1 million in her county alone. About 36% of all households own a dog, and as the human population rises, its canine community keeps pace.
It's not just a matter of quantity, Roache adds. As density increases, more conflicts arise because of sheer proximity.
"L.A. is changing. Neighborhoods that used to be all single-family dwellings now have condos and apartments going up," she says. "There's that whole new residential loft area in downtown L.A., which is one of many with an increased population of pets."
