Inherited Tenants with vicious dog

[David A Muise]

So my wife and I recently bought a multi family with two existing tenants. One of the tenants has two dogs one is friendly and one is not.

Today while at the property the tenant had both dogs on a leash and was walking them into the home. I tried one other time to be friendly with the dog and have the dog sniff my hand but honestly wasn’t sure if the dog would bite or not. I could feel the dogs energy and it wasn’t very good.

The tenant offered for me to feed the dog a treat and see if he responded differently afterwards. The dog was still on edge and as I tried to feed him a treat he jumped up at my sweatshirt and ripped a chunk off... thankfully he didn’t catch my skin.

So the question here is what’s next? Where do my wife and I go from here? We live in New Hampshire, the tenants lease is up in March 2021, And other than this one incident we’ve had no problems with the tenants in the two weeks we’ve known them. What are the laws involving dogs, what can we legally do? Mainly when it comes to landlord/tenant rights. What are all the options that are available?

Thanks