Help Need Advice: Neighbor’s Dogs Keep Coming Onto Our Property, Two Died. Location: Ohio

My partner and I (early 30s) recently bought a house on about 2 acres in Ohio. Rural area in a township— super exciting, except one major problem: our neighbors’ dogs. They have multiple large, aggressive dogs that kept coming onto our property. The first time it happened, one of them charged at my partner hard enough that we both felt unsafe.

We approached the neighbors and had what we thought was a reasonable conversation: “Please keep your dogs on your side of the property line.” Pretty simple request.

Their response? They said they’d try, but then the woman told us we should just carry a “ruler stick” around to scare off their dogs if they charge. Uh, no. We shouldn’t have to defend ourselves on our own property.

Separately, we have a groundhog problem under our shed. I’ve been actively hunting/trapping them and put down groundhog poison on our property, inside our fenced-off area. We warned the neighbors we were doing this and even put up an electric line fence to deter their dogs.

Despite all that, their dogs somehow got into the poison (again, on our fenced property), and unfortunately two of them died. ( their claims) no confirmation as to whether or not it was truly the poison. The neighbors blamed us immediately. The cops came, checked everything, and basically said we did nothing wrong as long as the poison wasn’t openly accessible — which it wasn’t. They were told to control their dogs.

Fast-forward about a month and a half. They get another dog. Guess what? Dog is on our property again.

We sent them a friendly reminder text with a photo: “Hey, please keep your dog off our property.”

Then this weekend, their dogs were back AGAIN. I ran them off and walked over to talk to the neighbor, telling him this was our final polite warning. We asked them again to respect our property, respect the fence line, and keep their animals contained.

He then tells me he “could have pressed charges” for the dogs that died.

At this point I’m completely done. We’ve tried conversations, warnings, physical barriers, everything.

So, Reddit — Am I handling this correctly? What should my next steps be?

Happy to answer questions.

Location: Ohio