The Alpha Neighbor

So I have this one neighbor. She lives about 4-5 houses down on the opposite side of the street from me. I see her every day, twice a day because she walks her two dogs in the morning and again at lunch when I'm taking little kid to school. She stands out because she walks her dogs without a leash and has long glossy black hair and she just sort of leisurely moseys around the neighborhood.

Soon after we moved in, I would hear my dogs going nuts twice a day. I would look outside to see what was causing the commotion and there she would be, encouraging her dogs to sit and lie down on the sidewalk in front of my house. Weird, I thought, but whatever. After this happened for a few days in a row, I would walk outside to get the mail when she did it and say hi. She would focus her attention on her dogs and mostly ignore me, while my dogs were barking. I soon figured out that she was using my dogs' stupidity to train her dogs. Good on you for having all day long to mess with your dogs, lady, now go play Cesar Millan in someone else's yard. I get it, you win Good Dog Owner award, my dogs will never comprehend property lines and your dogs are clearly superior. Gotcha.

Well this morning as we were walking out the front door for school, I see her out there sashaying around the sidewalk with her dogs. I did the half head nod, knowing she would most likely ignore me because she is rude like that. I picked up Big Kid's backpack, not realizing it was caught on the edge of a glass side table and pulled the entire glass table over, watching it shatter everywhere. I glanced out the front door to see that she was watching, I looked at the mess again and realized I couldn't clean it up and get Big Kid to school on time so I told the kids to get in the car. I then saw her walking back up my driveway and she leaned down and placed a plastic bag next to my mailbox. Weird, I thought. Maybe it's the neighborhood newsletter or something.

As I back out of the driveway, I slow down to look and can tell that it's a Ziploc bag full of dog poop. Hating confrontation and not wanting to be late, I hesitated and then remembered the last neighborhood poop thrower and decided I couldn't let this get out of hand again. I hopped out of the car and grabbed the bag and yelled "DID YOU LEAVE THIS IN MY YARD?"

She stopped, about 4 houses down now, near her own home, and said, "Yes, I'm coming back for it later. On my way back."

WTF, lady? Why am I your personal poop receptacle? And you seriously looked at a disheveled mom who just pulled a glass table over and who you knew could see you and thought, "This is a good spot to leave this bag of crap."

She acted kind of bitchy about it too, like I was the bad neighbor for not understanding that she didn't want to carry her bag of poop. You know what, lady? No one wants to carry the bag of poop! That's the worst part of dog ownership! And no other neighbors think it's okay to drop your bag of poop off in someone else's yard for later pick-up.

I think she's trying to show her dominance over me and my dogs and I'm not sure how to proceed. Should I sniff her butt next time she walks past? Pee on her mailbox? Join my dogs in barking and growling at her and her dogs?

I don't know but I don't blame my dogs for not liking her.