The Bandit Situation

I am about to reach the breaking point with our next-door neighbors' dog. He's an Australian shepherd cross and they just leave him in a 10'X12' cage in one corner of their yard. Unfortunately, the cage is right up against our fence and is just a few feet from our patio. We spend a lot of time out on the patio, and the dog has become increasingly territorial and noisy. When they first got the dog, he was okay. He didn't bark much, and he seemed like a nice pooch.

They put him (and their other dog) in the cage this summer because the two of them had completely torn up their yard. The dogs have gotten progressively more insane as the summer progressed, but the shepherd in particular has become a nuisance. He jumps up on the fence and snaps at whoever passes by. He barks whenever he hears our back door open. He has torn one of the cedar fence pickets off.

I have mentioned the problem to my neighbors and they seem to be unconcerned. I don't really understand why they keep the dogs at all, because they don't pay any attention to them. I don't really blame the dogs for being a bit ringy, given the situation, but I have left a large hickory axehandle next to the fence. If that dog tears another hole in our fence and manages to harm one of our dogs (or worse yet, the kids), I'm going to try the axehandle solution.