Dear Labby: advice for girl who is ready for a new dog

Recent conversations on these topics

• Neighbors dogs are constantly getting loose.

  Our neighbors have 2 moderately good sized dogs, who constantly climb over, or dig under their fence and get out. This happens a minimum of once a day. The fence that they keep escaping from is a mere 4 foot tall chain link fence; perfect for a small dog, but not for a big one. Our neighbors know their dogs can escape, and they are always running around the neighborhood in the attempt to round them up and bring them back home. My boyfriend and I have lived next to them for almost a year, and they have yet to attempt to ratify this problem. We have two dogs; a 7 year old cocker spaniel, and a 9 month old pitbull/boxer mix. Unfortunately, our yard is not fenced in yet, so we still have to leash our babies when they need to relieve themselves. While the "escapees" are friendly with our dogs and us, it is becoming quite a problem when they get loose and we are all outside. Our Pittie likes to play, and is very rambuncious if anyone, human or dog comes near her. Due to this, we are having to avoid taking her and our cocker out into OUR backyard; she gets excited, forgets to potty, and becomes very hard to control due to her strength. She is still a silly pup and not fully trained yet.Our cocker is nearly fully blind, and tends to get knocked over and into in the process of "play" between the "escapee" dogs and our pit. We are becoming very irritated that we have to plan our dogs potty breaks, outside visits, etc... around our neighbors dogs because they are irresponsible owners. We have thought about calling animal control, but we do not want to cause trouble with them; we will be living next to them for a long time, afterall. Do you have any suggestions as to what we should do about this? (At this point, I am almost more concerned about THEIR dogs' saftey than anything else.)

• Tension between roommates due to dogs

  My roommates and I have recently moved into our apartment. I have a dog that is 55 pounds, 6 months old while my roommate has a 6 month old dog that is 3 pounds and the size of my dogs head. My puppy is playful yet gentle with her puppy and never shows agression towards it. However, she thinks their "nippiness" is too violent and is always worried her dog is going to get hurt. A few times her puppy yelped but thats because when they were running around mine accidently stepped on her dogs foot and my roommate freaked out over this. The two puppies always go to each other they're not enemies at all but she keeps hers on a tight leash and makes sure it's always within two feet of her, as if its a little infant next to a ferocious beast! If my dog actually wanted to hurt hers, wouldn't he have done so already? She is constantly complaining about my dog trying to play with hers and that its way too rough, it causes a lot of stress in our house. Can you give me any advice on how to deal with this situation or something to tell her that would reassure her they are just playing?