When was redundancy pay first introduced?

Landlord's dog injured my puppy & bit me; Does he have any obligations to pay for any resulting bills?

• My landlords are very polite, kind, and the most ideal landlords you could ask for. A friend who grew up down the street from this couple were friends with their children, and when I was looking for a new place, he introduced us and I've been living there since. There was a scenario that occurred recently; I'm not interested in suing or making a big fuss, so let me break it down. Long story short I feel like they should pay for my vet invoice at the least. I am renting a garage apartment behind their main home and aside from me there are no other tenants to consider. I did sign a 1-year lease with them, which has since expired August 2011. We never discussed signing anything else and I have been living month-to-month. This is a pretty casual renting agreement, as you can see. Not to toot my own horn but I do know they enjoy me as a tennant and I've never done anything to cause them to feel otherwise. They have a gated backyard (metal fencing poles running vertically). They have three dogs and treat them all as part of the family. On the day of this incident, neither of the two landlords (husband and wife) were home at the time, and all three dogs were in the backyard. Nothing that hasn't happened before. I am going to interject here to state that there is only one dog that is "problematic"- the biggest of the 3, a handsome 5 year old male english pointer. No matter how many times he sees me, how long I've been there, even bartered treats to get him to calm down, he always, always, always barks incessantly crazy when he sees me. He does this to everyone. Even the land lords. I don't know if it's a territorial thing or what, but he comes off as aggressive. He does the same with the landlords themselves, and they have had him since a he was a pup. He stops as soon as they come into the backyard area; I have yet to see what he would do if I were to step into his fenced space. The other two dogs are older females. I do not have to enter the gated backyard to get to my apartment. During my lunch breaks I come home to let my own puppy out, check on her, play a bit, etc. SO I come home, walk up the sitars to my apartment where my puppy (5 month Corgi female) is eagerly waiting and watching me through the window. The dogs are outside, and of course the male dog has already seen me and started his usual annoying barking tirade. You know that awful thing where dogs will slink through the cracked door and bolt as fast as they can as soon as you open it? This was the first day in a long time my puppy pulled that move on me. Ill prepared I could not catch her fast enough. Big male dog is barking, she is barking. I watch in horror as she gets just close enough for the male dog to squeeze his head (somehow) through the metal bars and grab a hold of my puppy. I will spare you the traumatic details, but it wasn't going to be much of a fight, and it wasn't going to last long. This is a 100+ pound dog against my 14 pound puppy. Not an even match. Yes, totally horrific and traumatizing but I'm going to try to get to the point: Thinking there was no way he could pull her body through the fence, I'm concerned at this point of him pulling chunks of meat of her bones. Was I wrong? Totally. Even more mysteriously, he is able to PULL her THROUGH the fence and INTO the backyard. So now my unleashed puppy is in my land lord's gated backyard where they are totally allowed to keep their dogs. I unlock the gate (thankfully I could) and dive in to try to separate the dogs, and thanks to a stranger that heard the dogs and my hysterical screaming, eventually we seperate the dogs and we escape and lock the gate. My puppy suffered two puncture wounds, one on the hip, one in the stomach that required staples. I came out with a bite on my FACE. it sounds horrible, I know, but it was more of a bruise than any thing else. Yes it broke skin, yes I bled. But really, not the worst thing. So I'm thankful nothing worse happened to my puppy or myself. I did inform the landlords, they are aware and expressed concern and apologies. Neither of us have brought up anything financially related about the incident. My question is: are my land lords obligated in any way to pay for my dog's vet bills? It's such a complicated situation: casual agreement, no lease at the moment, my dog was technically off the leash, their dogs were technically in the back yard. Their dog got mine INTO the fenced area where I went in and sustained the bite to my face. I do NOT have renter's insurance. I did take photos of both my own and my pup's injuries. I do have the vet invoice. I did NOT go to a doctor for my face because it really didn't warrant a professional. But their dog DID bite a person (Me.), and it was in my face. He has had aggressive tendencies and this is not the first time he has gotten a hold of someone else's dog. I just wanted to make sure I h

• Answer:

  I would ask them if they are willing to split the vet bill with you. If they say "no" I would let it go, since your dog was offleash and not where it belonged, and theirs was inside their yard. Plus your dog participated in the fight, since she ran over to him and was barking at him....it's not like he swooped out of the sky and grabbed her. As far as the bite you sustained, the only reason you got bitten was because you were on their property, and in the midst of a dog fight. Not a pleasant situation by any means, but keep in mind that they could have insisted that you get rid of your pet in order to avoid liabilities.