Our neighbors are retarded.

Ok, so we have these neighbors to the back of us. We share about 6 feet of fence with them, and they have a VICIOUS pit bull. Let me preface this by saying that I have NO PROBLEM with pit bulls, and I never assume a dog is evil just because of its breed. I had 11 stitches in my ear lobe once from a cocker spaniel, and never once had any problems with our Chow. That being said, this pit is awful. And it's completely the fault of the owners. The dog lunges at our fence whenever our dogs are out there, and you can literally see the fence flexing under her weight. She growls and barks and attacks the fence trying to get at our dogs. Molly, obviously annoyed, always goes to the fence and barks back, trying to defend her yard I guess. This happens, oh, probably at least 3 times a day, depending on how much our dogs are out there. The pit seems to be out there most of the time.

Biscuit and Molly love EVERYONE. I'm not saying this just because they're my dogs, but they really do. We've taken them to friends houses that have several other dogs (males and females) and there has never been a problem. The neighbor to the side of us had a golden retriever, and our dogs never barked or were agitated by him. But this pit.... is terrible. When it first started happening, we thought maybe it was because the dogs didn't know each other and couldn't really see each other through the privacy fence. All they could see was through the 1/4 inch spaces between the slats. So we got them on leashes and walked around the block to talk to the owner (who had just moved in) to let the dogs meet face to face so they would know each other and be ok. We did it out in the street so there wouldn't be any territorial issues, and all was fine for a few minutes. She had her dog on a leash, ours were on leashes, and we were talking and everything was dandy. I was petting the pit and she was completely fine. Then, completely without warning, she backs up and pulls herself out of her collar and pins BOTH of my dogs to the ground underneath her at once and is growling and biting at them. The lady pulls her off (FINALLY) and beats the crap out of her. Scared, we left. The lady kept saying "I don't understand - she's such a sweet dog!) Ha.

This whole incident was about 4-5 months ago or so. We've been dealing with the barking and lunging ever since. We even bought 2 big sheets of plywood and nailed it to the inside of our fence (it looks nice and ghetto) so the dogs couldn't see each other through the slats. That didn't work. The pit bull lunges the fence so hard that several of the nails have come out. I'm sure if she ever gets through the fence my dogs are goners.

I don't blame the dog at all. I'm sure if she'd been with a loving family she would be much more well behaved. But sometimes when I hear them barking and go outside to get my dogs inside, I can see either the lady or her boyfriend beating the crap out of that poor dog with a belt while she whimpers. Way to go.... try to make your dog less aggressive by beating her with a belt. Obviously, it's not working.

Then today, when they were barking at each other I went out quietly so I could catch Molly in the act (We're trying to teach her to ignore the other dog). The neighbors obviously couldn't hear me come out because as soon as I walked out the first thing I heard was "Get her! Get that dog!!). Those rednecks are ENCOURAGING their already vicious dog to come after my dogs!!!

I'm not sure what we're supposed to do. We're doing our best to train our dogs not to be excited by the dog barking and lunging at them, because I'm sure the other neighbors around just love to hear them barking at each other, but they are not helping at all. What do we do??!! Help!