Was I Wrong? (Long Story)
We just got back from a wonderful week of camping and had one slight altercation with a neighbor. I'm curious to see what others might have to say.
This pic was taken from our site and as you might be able to tell, the campground road goes from left to right before it makes a 90 degree turn to the left. The girl on the bike is on the road and about to go past the picnic table, fire pit, tree and small shrubs before hitting the 90 degree right hand turn and come past our site. There is a vacant site on the inside part of the turn as you can see and that's who we had a problem with. I took the picture after they left.
It was a couple in their late 50's, early 60's with 2 small dogs. All week long they would walk their dogs either on the vacant sites next to them, using them as a doggy latrine or across the street where you can see the woods in my picture. We would walk our dogs in the wooded section behind the girl on the bike as instructed by the campground, much like the couple did when they didn't use vacant sites as a latrine.
For 3 or 4 days there was never a problem. Everyone went about their camping trips peacefully and enjoyably. My family had two campers there and luckily we had sites next to each other. Everything was going great!
One night at about 11pm I take one of our dogs to that grassy/woody section. I'm standing at about where that bike is but I'm actually behind the bike, on the grassy/woody area. I see the guy I mentioned above about 150' away from me down the road to the left behind some trees and bushes and I hear him saying things to his dog. The doggy area is about 150' long and about 10' deep as there is a chain link fence to prevent things from getting in and out of the park. I keep my distance and don't venture closer. We were basically at opposite ends of the 150' long doggy area. The dog I had at the time does his business as soon as I bring him to that area so I start and end the dog walk in under 2 minutes.
I go back to the camper and bring our second dog to the same area and I can still see the guy in the same area down the road and still talking to his dog. Again, we are at opposite ends of the doggy area. I'm minding my own business and staying just about as far away as possible in the area where we were supposed to bring dogs.
All of a sudden I hear a voice down the road from the guy walking his dog down the road. It was not a pleasant tone and it was not an angry tone but it was kind of an annoyed tone. It's after 11pm and he's yelling.
"Um, can you go walk your dog somewhere else? I'm trying to train a 3 month old puppy over here and your dogs keep distracting her."
My dogs weren't barking, they weren't growling, they weren't doing anything other than sniffing and peeing in the designated doggy area just about as far away from this guy as possible. We have two dogs and I walk them separately and it takes less than 5 minutes from the time I grab the first leash to the time I'm hanging up the second leash.
So I answer back, "I'm just trying to walk my dogs just like you are."
He comes back with, "I know, but can't you just walk your dogs over on your site or somewhere else because I have a 3 month old puppy I'm training. Can you show some courtesy!?" All the time in an annoyed tone and yelling at 11pm.
So I reply with, "Dude, I'm just trying to walk my dog just like you are in the designated area instructed by the campground. That's all I'm doing."
He then says something else about my manners and tells me to walk my dog somewhere else. I say "OK, I will" but I don't move.
At this point he picks up his dog and walks over to my face complaining about how I'm not listening and how I'm not being courteous. He tells me that I've been bringing my dogs over to his site all week to pee and poop. He was claiming that the other side of the road was his site too and I respond that no, I'm not bringing my dogs over to his site because HIS site is on the other side of the road with his camper, picnic table and fire pit and that I'm bringing my dog over to the designated doggy area as instructed by the campground as was everyone else in our loop. We always clean up after our dogs too so it's not like we left anything in the wooded area.
At this point he walks past me and he begins to walk right to my dad's site 30' away and says that he's going to bring both his dogs over to our site so they can relieve themselves by our picnic table. He even threatened to go get his BIGGER dog which was still only 20 lbs. :-)
I followed him that short distance and just as he got to my parents picnic table my brother heard the commotion and walked out of his camper at the next site. I call my brother's name and say, "Do you mind giving me a hand over here? This gentleman just threatened to bring both his dogs over to Dad's site and have them poop and pee all over.
My brother and him basically have the same conversation that I had with him, (keep in mind that he is currently on our site standing next to our picnic table), when a few seconds later my Dad comes out from his camper right there and asks what is going on. At this point the guy leaves and says something about how he is so happy he is packing up and leaving tomorrow and that it wasn't anything worth arguing about. We all went to bed after that and he was gone 12 hours later.
So what is your opinion on all of this? I wasn't doing anything other than simply walking my dogs in the designated doggy area and keeping my distance from him and his dog the whole time.
This pic was taken from our site and as you might be able to tell, the campground road goes from left to right before it makes a 90 degree turn to the left. The girl on the bike is on the road and about to go past the picnic table, fire pit, tree and small shrubs before hitting the 90 degree right hand turn and come past our site. There is a vacant site on the inside part of the turn as you can see and that's who we had a problem with. I took the picture after they left.
It was a couple in their late 50's, early 60's with 2 small dogs. All week long they would walk their dogs either on the vacant sites next to them, using them as a doggy latrine or across the street where you can see the woods in my picture. We would walk our dogs in the wooded section behind the girl on the bike as instructed by the campground, much like the couple did when they didn't use vacant sites as a latrine.
For 3 or 4 days there was never a problem. Everyone went about their camping trips peacefully and enjoyably. My family had two campers there and luckily we had sites next to each other. Everything was going great!
One night at about 11pm I take one of our dogs to that grassy/woody section. I'm standing at about where that bike is but I'm actually behind the bike, on the grassy/woody area. I see the guy I mentioned above about 150' away from me down the road to the left behind some trees and bushes and I hear him saying things to his dog. The doggy area is about 150' long and about 10' deep as there is a chain link fence to prevent things from getting in and out of the park. I keep my distance and don't venture closer. We were basically at opposite ends of the 150' long doggy area. The dog I had at the time does his business as soon as I bring him to that area so I start and end the dog walk in under 2 minutes.
I go back to the camper and bring our second dog to the same area and I can still see the guy in the same area down the road and still talking to his dog. Again, we are at opposite ends of the doggy area. I'm minding my own business and staying just about as far away as possible in the area where we were supposed to bring dogs.
All of a sudden I hear a voice down the road from the guy walking his dog down the road. It was not a pleasant tone and it was not an angry tone but it was kind of an annoyed tone. It's after 11pm and he's yelling.
"Um, can you go walk your dog somewhere else? I'm trying to train a 3 month old puppy over here and your dogs keep distracting her."
My dogs weren't barking, they weren't growling, they weren't doing anything other than sniffing and peeing in the designated doggy area just about as far away from this guy as possible. We have two dogs and I walk them separately and it takes less than 5 minutes from the time I grab the first leash to the time I'm hanging up the second leash.
So I answer back, "I'm just trying to walk my dogs just like you are."
He comes back with, "I know, but can't you just walk your dogs over on your site or somewhere else because I have a 3 month old puppy I'm training. Can you show some courtesy!?" All the time in an annoyed tone and yelling at 11pm.
So I reply with, "Dude, I'm just trying to walk my dog just like you are in the designated area instructed by the campground. That's all I'm doing."
He then says something else about my manners and tells me to walk my dog somewhere else. I say "OK, I will" but I don't move.
At this point he picks up his dog and walks over to my face complaining about how I'm not listening and how I'm not being courteous. He tells me that I've been bringing my dogs over to his site all week to pee and poop. He was claiming that the other side of the road was his site too and I respond that no, I'm not bringing my dogs over to his site because HIS site is on the other side of the road with his camper, picnic table and fire pit and that I'm bringing my dog over to the designated doggy area as instructed by the campground as was everyone else in our loop. We always clean up after our dogs too so it's not like we left anything in the wooded area.
At this point he walks past me and he begins to walk right to my dad's site 30' away and says that he's going to bring both his dogs over to our site so they can relieve themselves by our picnic table. He even threatened to go get his BIGGER dog which was still only 20 lbs. :-)
I followed him that short distance and just as he got to my parents picnic table my brother heard the commotion and walked out of his camper at the next site. I call my brother's name and say, "Do you mind giving me a hand over here? This gentleman just threatened to bring both his dogs over to Dad's site and have them poop and pee all over.
My brother and him basically have the same conversation that I had with him, (keep in mind that he is currently on our site standing next to our picnic table), when a few seconds later my Dad comes out from his camper right there and asks what is going on. At this point the guy leaves and says something about how he is so happy he is packing up and leaving tomorrow and that it wasn't anything worth arguing about. We all went to bed after that and he was gone 12 hours later.
So what is your opinion on all of this? I wasn't doing anything other than simply walking my dogs in the designated doggy area and keeping my distance from him and his dog the whole time.
