Dogs Cramping Schiffer's Style?

Fri., Sep. 8, 2006 10:00 PM PDT by Natalie Finn

No one wants to stroll the runway in front of Claudia Schiffer's house.

Neighbors of the supermodel are complaining that they can't walk near the Elizabethan mansion she shares in the English countryside with husband Matthew Vaughn without being accosted by Schiffer's two dogs, the BBC reported Friday.

Police in the county of Suffolk have said that they will speak to Schiffer about the nuisance allegedly caused by her German shepherd, Oscar, and wolfhound, Roxy. Locals reportedly complained that the dogs are "running wild" on a public walkway located on the Bury St. Edmonds property.

"We have had complaints, in the main via the parish council, of concerns over dogs roaming free on public footpaths," Jane Austen, er, a police spokeswoman told the BBC. "Arrangements are in hand to meet the owners of the dogs to discuss these issues.

"We received one complaint of a dog causing injury to another dog in December 2005. Although not a criminal matter, all parties were spoken to at that time and suitable advice given."

According to Britain's Daily Mail, Oscar nipped a postman in the arm, which led to a threat of no more mail delivery service, and Roxy mauled a Jack Russell terrier. The tabloid said that Schiffer and Vaughn paid the Jack Russell owner's veterinary bills after the dog needed surgery.

"The dogs are still getting out on their own and can be quite aggressive and intimidating when they run up and bark," a villager who wished to remain anonymous told the Mail. "The wolfhound is worse because it is the size of a small pony and she has got far more frightening as she has grown up."

She said that she had written the family to complain and received a note of apology from Vaughn, but that Roxy is still up to her old tricks.

"When I went down the path again I had the same problem with the wolfhound trying to bite my dog. I wrote a second letter to the house, but I got no reply. A lot of people have now been put off using this path because they are worried about the dogs. I certainly don't like going there any more."

"The household have since taken various precautions with the dogs to ensure public safety," Schiffer's rep said in a statement regarding the neighbours' complaints. "This has included sending the dogs for re-training and keeping them in an enclosed area."

Although David Copperfield may have been able to make this problem disappear, Schiffer got hitched to Vaughn, a film producer, in 2002 in the picturesque village of Shimpling. The couple have been living in pastoral bliss with Oscar, Roxy, and their two children, three and a half-year-old Caspar Matthew and 22-month-old Clementine. They divide their time between their country estate and a house in West London's Notting Hill.

Schiffer, 36, who kicked off her super career as a Guess? jeans girl in the early 1990s and went on to grace more than 900 magazine covers, showed up in the 2003 film Love Actually as Liam Neeson's dream woman and had a cameo on Arrested Development.

Vaughn directed the jaunty U.K. caper flick Layer Cake in 2004 and produced two of Guy Ritchie's better films, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, as well as one of his lesser ones, Swept Away.