Dear Labby: so what's in a dog's name?

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.)