Oh, very insightful. By the way, one doesn’t bring a dog outside; one takes a dog outside.
Oh, I don’t disagree- I’m simply saying that while I don’t at all condone it, I at least can- on some level- understand why they maybe withheld that info.
That poor little doggy. She had no idea what was coming.
Setting the OP’s situation aside, what in the hell was the dog walker thinking by taking a pack of dogs out without ALL of them being on a leash. I don’t care if coyotes are common or not, dogs will be dogs and they all have the ability to be unreliable. I will never understand the people who take their dogs out off leash and I have even less understanding of a dog walker doing that.
You’re criticizing me for contributing little insight to this thread and this is what you respond with? That’s pretty funny.
I could understand why a dog walker would typically keep dogs on leash; after all, freak accidents aren’t good for business – might as well reduce the chance of that happening to as close to zero as possible.
But as for understanding why people take their dogs off leash? Seems fairly obvious – higher quality of life for the dog. It’s also an enjoyable thing to see a dog freely trotting alongside you, running back to you after quick forays into the woods, making eye contact for cues on where to go. You get to experience a real communication between the two of you, which you don’t really get to feel with the leash.
No. That’s pretty sardonic.
Your intention may be to be sardonic. The fact that you imagine yourself to be scoring points in some fashion with these comments is funny.
Did you have anything to add to the discussion at hand?
Look, you made a flippant comment, “Why do people bring (sic) their dogs outside?” with no other clues to your seriousness, or lack thereof.
I assume now you were joking; I didn’t catch that originally.
See?
Double posted.
I hate to Star Wars this, but the dog walker told the truth (except about the leash) from a certain point of view.
I don’t know about him, but I see that actually explaining the reason for your post makes a lot more sense than vaguely insulting someone.
Also, what’s wrong with keeping dogs inside? It’s a lot better than having my neighbor throw rocks and try to poison them.
misterW, Leaffan, take your sniping at each other elsewhere.
twickster, MPSIMS moderator
Yeah, that’s fine, if it’s a one-on-one experience with you and your dog – this is a walker trying to control multiple dogs, none of them belonging to him or her. Recipe for disaster, esp. in a park known to have coyotes.
The interesting thing is how coyotes can do it. They are typically not big animals and yet even mid to mid-large size dogs are taken by coyotes. I imagine it’s all pack work.
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The dead dog was on a leash. The other dogs were not. The leash was dropped when responding to the actions of the off-leash dogs.
I suppose a select few people can master this…but mostly people just fantasize that their dog is “making eye contact for cues” and “experiencing real communication.” Almost without exception, the thousands and thousands of times I’ve seen an off-leash dog in public, the human has had no control and the dog has gone anywhere he or she wanted to, including into traffic and attacking other dogs, while the human pitifully yells the dog’s name from way behind.
In almost every case, if your dog is off leash, you don’t have a dog, you’re just near a dog. And maybe not very near.
Wait…coyotes that were being chased by several off-leash dogs took the time to stop and chow down on their kill? Did the off-leash dogs just sit there quietly waiting until they were done eating? I’m confused.
I reckon, since they knew the goggy wasn’t coming home it was just a matter of what reason they wanted to assign to it. “I dunno, musta vanished into thin air” is arguably better than “Your beloved family member was rent and devoured by a pack of coyotes in what was most certainly a horrible and gruesome death.” Although I prefer the truth, in my experience most people don’t.
My take on it was: dogs saw coyotes, chaos ensued, collection efforts ensued and not all the dogs were found. Walker, may not have noticed or may have just given up trying to control all the dogs while she looked for the little terrier and returned to base. Any time after that the terrier could have popped up with a coyotes in (brief) pursuit.
I agree; like I said above, I wouldn’t expect a walker to do that, unless there was some prior understanding with the owner that the dog would be walked off leash.