Location: Michigan
My husband (25M) and I (25F) live on a nice 2.5 acre plot of land in a rural town in Michigan. Our Neighbors also live on roughly a 2.5 acre plot and have a walking path they have created around the perimeter of their property that they walk with their unleashed Golden Retriever(?) 3x a day. The problem is that their dog is super unruly. I'm not sure the age of the dog, but it is young enough that it has a ton of energy, but old enough that it should be trained (I'd guess about 2). If it sees something on our lot, it will bold away from the owners and they can't get him to come back. He doesn't listen to commands and appears to be somewhat aggressive (he will growl at us).
We welcomed our first baby girl 6 months ago and have been dreaming of our kids running and playing in our yard, but having their neighbor dog is starting to give me anxiety! Even bringing her outside with us makes me nervous because even if we are holding her, the dog is big enough that it could still reach her. Our neighbors are old, so even if they leashed the dog, it would easily be able to pull them down to get to where it wants.
I want to know if there is anything that we can do to protect ourselves and our kids. Should we have a conversation with them about our concerns? Can we ask them to put up a fence along that edge of the property line? Or is it up to us to protect ourselves?
My husband jokingly says that he will shoot the dog (we don't own any guns), but if it comes down to my child or the dog, we'll do ANYTHING to protect our child. We just don't want it to come to a situation where our child is actually in danger or hurt.