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TO OWNERS Japinder Singh (left), 30, and Karanveer Singh, 26, their five rottweilers Cleo, Rexy, Juliet, Popeye and Romeo are harmless. -- ST PHOTOS: EDWIN KOO
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A FAMILY'S five rottweilers are making their neighbour nervous.
The dogs, known for their aggressive nature, are a noisy nuisance and a threat to others in the neighbourhood, claimed Mr Foo Seck Siong, 66, who lives next door.
And why, he asked in The Straits Times Forum on Friday, was his neighbour allowed to have five dogs?
'I have to keep one eye on their gate when I am watering the plants outside, in case one of their dogs slips out. I fear for my safety,' the semi-retired businessman told The Sunday Times.
He tells his wife and grandchildren to stay indoors when he sees the dogs in his neighbour's 20m driveway.
But the dogs' owner is arguing that they are merely playful pets who stay within the grounds of their Lengkong Tiga bungalow in Kembangan. They are never let out.
To Madam Satpal Kaur, her parents, her three sons and daughters-in-law who live there, they are ultimately harmless.
'Right now they are only puppies, so they are like playful young children,' said the 51-year-old IT business owner.
Though they did occasionally slip out through the gate, a dog trainer's weekly 'obedience' classes have worked.
She has five dogs, when three is the maximum allowed by the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA), because her original pair produced four puppies.
Their 'father' died last August, leaving the 'mother' and her four pups, now about 15 months old.
Madam Satpal said she appealed to AVA to keep them all as some are handicapped, and putting them up for adoption will mean new owners may face high medical costs. She did not want to kill them either.
She got her approval.
Even so, rottweilers have often made news for attacking people and smaller dogs - in a 2005 Straits Times report, a rottweiler attacked its owner's seven-year-old son.
Madam Satpal admitted that the 'father' of her family of rottweilers once bit another terrier after the other dog 'snapped' at him. But the rest are no trouble, she said.
She said Mr Foo was mistaken about seeing her employee 'attacked' by the dogs last Sunday, an allegation he made in his Forum letter. 'The worker has known the dogs from young and often plays with them,' she explained, although it may have seemed otherwise to her neighbour on that day.
Mr Foo has lived in his house for 17 years, while Madam Satpal's family moved in seven years ago.
Yet neither has ever spoken directly about the dogs. Madam Satpal said she was too busy, and Mr Foo said 'there is just no chemistry between us'.
Other neighbours along the stretch of terrace and semi-detached houses are not as agitated as Mr Foo, as long as the dogs are safely locked up.
Still, in Singapore, they are required to be muzzled when in public.
Mr Koh Boon Cheng, a neighbour who owns a husky, pointed out: 'Rottweilers are very fierce and they have big mouths. They should wear a mouthpiece all the time.'
Even if they do not attack, their loud barking bothers nearby HDB residents, two of whom can hear them in the early morning, barking at people walking by.
Mr Foo has offered this solution, which Madam Satpal is considering: 'Build a manual gate in the middle of the driveway so the dogs won't accidentally run out.'
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