I was listening to an interview with the ‘Dog Whisperer’ on my local public radio and made a comment that dogs in Europe are much better behaved than in the USA, and that they don’t need to use leashed as much. I think he was implying that Americans dog owners, like so many American parents, are run by their kids/dogs. Is this a common opinion about American pet owners?
I don’t know how this question can be answered definitively from a non-opinionated basis. IME, dealing with dogs and their owners in the US, UK, and France, dogs are just as poorly behaved in those countries as they are in the US.
Dogs are, well, dogs. They’re only going to be as good as their humans’ training, supervision and care.
I think the guy’s point was that in the USA the proper “training, supervision, and care” is lacking.
Yeah, got that. Una then made the counterpoint that it’s not necessarily much better in other places.
I have no idea whether it’s really true but I have heard it several times from Americans in Germany. One explanation that I have heard was that Germans are more likely to expose their dogs to some situations where they have to behave perfectly. From what I’ve heard, Americans are not as likely to bring their dogs to restaurants or public transport etc. If you keep your dog in your own home, your own car or outdoors all the time, then you can probably tolerate more less-than-perfect behaviour. Of course we don’t have a shortage of badly behaved dogs here either.
It’s legal to take pets to resturants and on public transport in Germany? Are you allowed to take them into stores there too?
Yes, it is. You may not keep a dog in the kitchen of a restaurant, but among the guests it’s OK. Of course individual restaurants can choose not to allow them. In public transport dogs might need their own ticket but it’s clearly legal.
Not into into food stores (except for seeing-eye dogs.) In other stores it depends on their policy, but it’s certainly not uncommon.
You’re allowed to take dogs on the Metro-North Railroad (don’t even have to buy him a ticket.) But not the LIRR.
I just checked the website and they can ride free here in Rochester too, but non-service animals must be crated, and the crate must not block the aisle. So it would be difficult if you had a medium/large pet. Most restaurants are closed to pets.
Here in Wisconsin there is no state law against dogs in grocery stores, but most stores prohibit it by policy. Our local store allows dogs but they must remain in your shopping cart. I would never dream of taking my pup there, but have seen some do it. As to behavior, our Foxie, (border-collie/golden retriever mix from the rescue pound) is very well behaved. She went through obedience training twice, once with me and once with my wife, because 90% of it is about training the human, not the dog. Here the training is cheap, about $40, and it was money well spent. We have a whole lot of irresponsible pet keepers here too. Dogs are dogs, they will do as thier keepers have taught them, whether the keeper taught it on purpose or not. A community of polite responsible humans will have well behaved dogs. A community of rude boorish humans while have misbehaved dogs. In my experience all communities are a mix of both. JMHO.
The most common place to see dogs in public in the US is because they’re being walked. Because the dogs want to. So I suppose this is true. Not meaningful, but true.
What would be the point of comparison for using leashes? When I see people with dogs on town/city streets here of course the dogs are leashed (unless they’re carried) - no reflection on the dogs’ behavious towards people, it’s only because they’d soon get flattened by traffic else. In parks or forest people often seem to unleash their dogs.
The dogs I encounter in urban public places (on the street, public transport, in shops, in restaurants while their owners eat) usually either keep themselves to themselves, or just look at me and take a sniff. They don’t bother people (with few exceptions - in one of the restaurants I frequently use some other regulars have a dog who lies under the table but occasionally does a very shrill and startling yip. Dogs running around in parks and forests often run at me (usually accompanied by a shout by the owner: “Don’t be afraid, he/she only wants to play”.)
The only occasions where dogs behave objectionably towards me are when they’re ‘protecting’ their owner’s front garden.
I noticed this when I was living in Germany. The vast majority of pet dogs I saw there were incredibly well-behaved in public. Eerily so, if you ask me.
I’ve seen 'em in trains and buses, even in restaurants, behaving in a most un-doglike manner - especially compared to pretty much every single pet dog I’ve seen in India. They almost always be sitting or lying down quietly, rarely responding to anything! Barely a whimper, much less the occasional bark… even around other dogs.
My parents are Americans who have taken their dogs to Europe several times. At restaurants, our dogs where always perfectly fine and not getting into trouble. Of course, this isn’t so much training as that when you are leashed to a chair and your owner busy eating and talking to other humans, there isn’t much to be done but lie down under the table and hope some scraps are sent down.
And just walking about the street, our dogs didn’t seem any more inquisitive than European. It all may just look more organized in Europe as most dogs there (including my parents’) are small dogs and so unable to yank their owner around.
In France, at least last I was there, there were also a lot of cases of people with doggy backpacks. It’s easy to behave properly when you are just a head bobbing out of a bag on someone’s back. 
So, I might say the European dogs behave better, but largely because they are, as was noted by other posters, often put in positions where they have to behave well.
Another factor I’ve noticed in various locales in the US is that dogs will socialize with other dogs in the area and take cues as to acceptable behaviour from them. So if a town already has predominantly good dogs, new dogs to the town will also tend to behave well, as they’ll be inclined to behave like the other dogs they know. But of course, this will be a much more localized phenomenon than Europe vs. US.
Everything you say is specific to your region of Germany, because it certainly doesn’t work that way in mine (Kaiserslautern). It is illegal for a dog to be in a restaurant or any other establishment selling food. However, this is rarely enforced (either by the police or by the store owners) except in butcher shops. In my experience, most restaurants openly welcomed dogs, and there would be a dog or two in any restaurant at any given time.
As for public transport, dogs need tickets only if they’re big. I’m sure this varies with the bus/tram/train line.
It would be neat to be able to go more places with my little Papillon. We’re going to compete soon in competition, just need to polish her stand-stay. 
zombie or no
European dogs behave because they know how popular sausage is there.
European dogs are no better behaved as such than American ones, but at least they very rarely have guns.