[Rant] Angry Redneck: "I'll kill you and your dog"

Need to rant for a bit, so bear with me.

For the past half year or so I've been walking my parents' dog, Gracie, for them in the evening. Here's a picture of her:



She's a quiet, old dog, and doesn't take much interest in other people or animals. Her typical walk consists of doing a lap around the neighborhood on the sidewalk, taking her time to smell the scents of the other dogs that have been walking around. Occasionally people express concern that she's going to make a mess in their yard, and I reassure them that I'll be picking up after her if she decides to take a #2. This is usually enough to satisfy most people.

So anyway, there's a guy that lives around the corner that is always sitting out in his driveway, usually drinking a beer and chatting with his neighbors. I don't know him, but would wave and say "hi" or "howdy" to him as I passed by on the opposite side of the street. Typically he would ignore me or stare at me as I walked past, so after a while I gave up on trying to say anything.

Around 7 months ago or so, my sister and I happened to be walking Gracie on the sidewalk in front of his house. Gracie was walking on the bit of grass between the sidewalk and the street when the guy voiced how disrespectful we were being to his property by "maliciously" (his word) allowing our dog to soil his yard. I'm kind of surprised by this first contact. He then goes on to say that by letting my dog walk by his house, I'm causing all of the animals in the neighborhood to be attracted to his yard. He also complains about Gracie using the bathroom in other people's yards (not his). I let him know that I pick up after my dog, to which he replies "You don't pick up his piss". Ok...

I raise the fact that he has a dog of his own and that may explain why dogs are attracted to his yard. He's hearing none of it, and we end up bickering and yelling at each other for a while before I apologize to him and promise to never let my dog near his yard again. Since then, I've never allowed Gracie to go over to that side of the street if we happen to be walking that way. He usually stares at me as I walk by and I give him a blank look or ignore him.

Tonight, we're walking down that street and he's sitting out in his yard. Gracie and I are walking down the middle of the street. As we get closer to his house, she starts to pull towards his house. I let her get within a few feet of the curb, but no closer. As we walk in front of his driveway, he comes down to the curb and starts shaking his head. I keep walking by. When I'm a couple yards past, I can hear him complaining about my "f**king dog". I turn around and ask him if he has a problem. He comes over to me, gets up in my face, and say he has a problem with me and my dog. I ask him what we did, and he says the dog was in his yard near the light pole. I find this interesting as he was sitting in his driveway, and there's about 6 feet of hurricane debris (tree limbs, fences) stacked up around the light pole that would prevent him from seeing anything on the other side of it from his chair. I tell him that we didn't go into his yard, he couldn't have seen whether we were or not, and that he can't do anything about us walking down the street. He calls me a liar. He's a bit bigger than me, and gets right into my face and tries to intimidate me. We're both starting to get pissed at this point, dropping f-bombs and what not. I ask him if he's going to hit me. He tells me that he's tired of my sh** and he better not see me walking down the street again "or else". I ask him what that means, telling him that it sounds like a threat against me and my pet. He just keeps saying try it and see what happens. I tell him he's full of it and walk off.

When I get to the corner or the street a few houses down, his poodle comes running down the street and he's chasing and calling after it. I tell him that he needs to keep better control of his pet, and that he shouldn't be letting it run around other people's yards off of a leash. I note that his dog seems to frequently be on the loose (it is). He really loses his cool at that point. He runs up to me, grabs my arm, pushes me in the chest, and says that he's going to kill me and my dog while his face is inches from mine. I tell him that I should call the cops. He replies go ahead while he's walking back down the street. At this point I'm just tired of his antics and proceed to go home.

I tell my parents about this since I don't want them to get blindsided by the guy if he happens to be crazy enough to try attacking them or their dog. They go over to his house to confront him. At this point he has about 8 or so of his neighbors in his driveway and some weird guy in a golf cart full of people in front of his house. He basically denies threatening anybody, His neighbors are sticking up for him, a bunch of yelling ensues, and nothing useful is accomplished.

Anyway, I realise this is probably TLDR material, but I just want to know what the **** is wrong with people? What makes people act like this? It's just hard to understand. I wanted to pop the guy in his nose so badly but didn't since that's probably what he wanted and it wouldn't end up well for me.



"I'm king of the street! I'll kill you and your dog!"

 

Yeah, in hindsight I should have called after he charged me.

I just feel for my parents because they're the ones that have to live near him.

 

One of his drinking buddy's kids already keyed my dad's truck months ago. They also throw rocks and unopened soda cans against their house in the middle of the night. The guy that lives next to him has called the cops on the kid before, but the parents don't give a crap. They probably encourage that type of behavior.