[dryoasis88]

Ok, so I haven't posted on here in a long while because of some other reasons unrelated to this post and this website in general, but today I reached my last straw with my neighbor and since it relates to my dog, I figured here might be the most appropriate place to vent.

I live in an area of Berlin, Germany which is mostly older people and couples with children, so being a student who lives alone, I sometimes stand out. I have been in my current apartment for about 18 months and when I moved in, my nice neighbor, who we will call Mrs. W, introduced herself and her dog Bapsi to me and my Hepburn. Bapsi is a cute small bichon mix who is almost exactly the same age as Hepburn, but a bit bigger. Bapsi is mostly well-behaved and much more calm than Hepburn, who can be a bit crazy when he greets other dogs, something I have been working on with him for quite a while with limited success (any tips in this direction, as a side note, would be greatly appreciated).

In Berlin, there is no general leash law and many dogs just run free, not all of them answering to their owner's commands when they really all should. The law actually states that dogs may only be leash-free when their owners can confidently maintain control of them at all times. I choose to always have Hepburn on a leash and since he is so small and I have anxiety issues around large dogs (due to a traumatic bite incident last April and being a witness to a horrific dog attack just in March), I also don't take him to dog parks or parks where many dogs are off leash. He doesn't listen reliably and even though I work with him, I don't think I will ever be comfortable with him off-leash. My neighbor, however, lets Bapsi off her leash all the time and tells me regularly how it is bad training on my part that makes it impossible to let Hepburn off his leash. I have told her time and time again that it has to do with my comfort level and my anxiety, but firmly repeated that my decision to not go off-leash with my dog is my business and not hers. I do often take Hepburn to my workplace, which is as a nanny to 4 children and they have a large garden with a secure fence so he runs there about twice a month and I can see that he likes it, but don't have the benefit of a fenced yard myself.

The unsolicited advice about the off-leash issue is just the beginning. She also chewed me out for about 6 months about having Hepburn fixed because it was damaging his natural instincts. I waited until he was almost 18 months to have him fixed and I did it because he was marking my walls in my apartment and I wanted it to stop. I also did it because it is common sense to prevent certain cancers and to control the already rising population of abandoned and unwanted pets by not allowing my dog to contribute to it. I asked her to please respect my choice to have him fixed for my own reasons, just as I respect her choice to not have Bapsi fixed and let her go into heat (which drives all the other intact male dogs on our street insane, including the really large ones).

To add onto this, she often complains that I don't exercise Hepburn enough, but never complains about barking (because he is mostly quiet) or other problems. Today, she complained again that she only ever sees me take Hepburn right outside the building to pee and come back in. As I do take him on a walk twice a day and he does join me on many activities on the weekends which take him all over the city and to the country surrounding, I was a bit offended to think she would make an assumption that I don't exercise my dog enough. I turned to her and said, well since you aren't monitoring me all day and all night, you wouldn't know how I choose to exercise my dog, nor do you know my dog well enough to understand his exercise needs and how I best meet them while going to school and working part-time. She started to come back with something, and I just said, have a good evening, went into my apartment and closed the door.

I am just fuming at this point that she continues to approach me with unsolicited advice. I feel like I shouldn't have to justify my decisions, but when she says something negative, it feels like she is calling my ability to train my dog and maintain its health. Hepburn is like my baby, he gets the best food, ordered online because it isn't available here, he goes almost everywhere I go except school and sometimes work, and he is a huge part of my life. I have spent the better part of over 2 years training and loving him, and I don't plan on stopping anytime soon. How can I stop this well-meaning but nosy neighbor in her tracks and cut off the flow of unsolicited, unwanted advice? I am not unguilty in this sense, as sometimes I do say something to people on the street mostly to large dog owners with out of control dogs on the sidewalk, forcing me to pick up Hepburn and go into panic mode, but normally, I hold my tongue unless I feel like my dog is in danger.

Any advice on how to shut up my nosy neighbor (or just comforting words telling me I am not wrong to keep my dog on a leash and such)? (Sorry for the long post, I just needed to get it all out! I didn't even realize how much it bothered me until tonight when she approached me. This has been building up for 18 months and I needed somewhere to explode, otherwise I would have exploded to her and been pretty mean).