Legal Question in Appeals and Writs in Alabama

The people that own the house next door to me but no longer live there & haven't in over a year have taken us to court about our dog. They took us the first time when they still lived there & we had to get rid of the 2 we kept outside in a fenced yard, but we kept our big baby peanut & would only let him in our fenced yard with us outside watching him. They moved & we started letting him out more because the only complaint made was the neighbors who no longer lived there, but still never left him out he stays inside all day while were at work. One of my kids was home one day & not knowing they were next door doing something let him out. A police report was made & we were never ticketed or notified of anything. We had to be in court on a completely unrelated issue & with out any letter ticket or knowledge of what was going on they had added a violation of vicious animal law to why were there. We had no lawyer or couldn't even check in to the law since we were blindsided by all of it. My dog has never bit anyone & never gotten out of my yard! He hates the neighbors & does bark viciously at the fence & thats why we dont let him out. The judge ordered us to get rid of the dog in one week or go to jail. We werent allowed to offer a solution or even have any time to register what happened! When my husband tried to ask if there wasnt anything we could do other than having to get rid of him he was told by the judge "I think you need to spend a few days in jail." If we had even known this happened we would have had 2 months to put up a privacy fence or something. Ive been told by a police officer that this isnt legal that they had to ticket us! the first time we went it was for a noise violation. I just cant see that it should be legal to blindside someone in court with a charge they didnt even know about & there not be anything we can do. This dog is our family & we will do what we have to but its not fair or right! We have so many people that would get up in court & say that peanut being vicious is a joke, but only people that have never been around him mattered. I need help fast I need to know if theres anything I can do to stop this. We couldn't even tell the judge that the people making the complaint dont live there anymore.

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