I’m very curious how often this actually happens. I live in a rural area where coyotes are very common and many dogs are not confined outside the house. While it is not uncommon to have a cat disappear, I have never heard of this with dogs – especially mid to large size dogs.
Well, I won’t pretend that one has the same control of a dog unleashed as when they are tied to the end of a rope. That is why if your dog is abused or not properly socialized and may attack other dogs, you need to do this away from other dogs. Also,if your dog doesn’t stick relatively close to you, common sense would dictate you shouldn’t do this near traffic.
I think a problem also arises with dogs that have not been exposed to walking off leash from a young age. When they are finally off leash, they are overcome by excitement and more likely to run further than you would prefer.
Your neighbor throws rocks at your dogs and tries to poison them? Um, have you addressed that with him?
Running around with your nose to the ground is kind of the essence of being a dog. Depriving them of that seems rather cruel. Also, isn’t going for walks or playing outside a big part of the draw of having a dog? If you just want an inside pet, maybe there’s something else that would be more suitable than a dog.
OP here - we walk our dog off leash and have never had a problem, even when he sees coyotes or deer. We have good control and he’s a well behaved dog, because we put a LOT of time and energy in to training him to this point. We take him to off-leash parks almost daily because, since he’s a Husky/Shepherd cross, he needs a LOT of exercise, and he won’t get that on-leash or in the house.
That said, many people don’t have control over their off-leash dogs due to lack of training and control, but to be honest, I rarely see problems at the dog parks here (other then people not picking up dog poo).
An owner may have control over one or two off leash dogs but frankly it’s rare to maintain control when something happens to set the dog off into full dog mode like seeing something it really wants to chase, like prey (cat, rabbit, squirrel) or an invading predator. I used to show my dog at obedience trials, these were highly trained dogs, you know what you never saw at an obedience trial? A dog walking off leash unless it’s in the ring because even obedience trainers know you can’t trust a dog to behave 100% of the time.
Expecting someone who is not part of that dog’s family/pack to have complete control over it is ridiculous. Maybe it would be okay in a smaller fenced dog park not crawling with predators but to take multiple dogs that are not yours and allow some off leash in a place known to be crawling with a species of predator is extremely stupid.
Whenever I’ve seen those dog walkers with multiple dogs it always makes me nervous. How do they know that these unrelated dogs are going to get along? What if little terrier dog decides it hates the big shepherd and nips it on the butt and the shepherd responds by picking the terrier up in it’s jaws and shaking it? How does the walker then get the shepherd to stop while controlling the other 3 or 4 dogs that just went into pack mode and want to join in? I always thought that a walking multiple unrelated dogs is an accident waiting to happen. My sympathies to the OP’s cousin for having had it happen to their little dog.
One dog walker too stupid to use leashes, and some domestic dogs who don’t know each other, are no match for coordinated pack tactics. A standard ploy would be for some coyotes to lead the pursuing dogs off in one direction while another coyote circles back to pick off the little one.
Now you’re starting to sound…inexperienced around dogs.
It’s not just your dog that is an issue when walking off-leash – it’s the least common denominator of every other dog out there too. If a well-socialized off-leash Yorkie runs up to a leashed dog of unknown propensity, the Yorkie could be in trouble even though he’s well-behaved, and the dog-aggressive dog was on a leash and under control. And it’ll be the Yorkie-walker’s fault, but both dogs will pay the price, not to mention the law-abiding leash user.
And no amount of training is going to avail your dog against a speeding Ford F-150, unless you replaced his bones with adamantium or something. Everywhere is near traffic if your dog runs off; the literature is full of stories of journeys of hundreds of miles.
Yes, in many areas, urban, suburban, and rural, poisoning, tormenting, and even shooting dogs is unfortunately common. Maybe you’ve never had one of the breeds currently in the cultural crosshairs, like pit bulls, Cane Corsos, and Rottweilers now are, and Dobermans, German Shepherd Dogs, Akitas, and Dachshunds have been, but dogs being harassed and even killed by neighbors is common. This summer two dogs in a town a few miles from me were killed by poisoned meat thrown over their fences. They weren’t pit bulls, but idiots sometimes can’t tell or don’t care. Taking it up with the neighbors after the dog is dead is no substitute for being present in your dog’s life.
Also, it’s possible to run great distances (even with one’s nose to the ground) while leashed to a sufficiently athletic human.
Okay, so what idiot dog walker allows any dog under her care to roam around off-leash, knowing full well there are coyotes in the area and she was basically marching around with coyote bait at the ends of the leashes?
After my attorney and I got through with her, the name of her business would be “Dogzilla’s Dog Walking Service.” :dubious:
Doesn’t matter which dog was on leash and which was not. The fact of the matter is, if this dipshit dogwalker had all of her charges on leash (none of whom, were presumably, her own dogs), then she’d have never had to drop any leashes to go running after off-leash dogs.
I cannot figure out what is so difficult to understand about “This isn’t my dog but I am being paid to be responsible for it; therefore, I will take more precautions for your dog than I would for my own, in the interest of your dog’s safety.”
At best, this dogwalker has a crappy business model.
I am actually a bit surprised at the comments about dog walkers taking dogs off leash, but don’t really know how to defend it, because these are all great points. I have a dog walker for my dog as well, and he goes on off leash dog pack walks. I guess I never thought of these types of implications before…
The majority of large dog walking companies in Calgary offer off leash pack walks. It’s not an anomaly that this walker was doing a mixed (off and on leash) walk.
This. I dog sit for a friend of mine. Her dog is pretty good off-lead, but I will not let her off-lead unless I am 99.99% sure of the situation and surroundings. Her dog is very good with other dogs and cats. Very good around children. The very model of a well-trained lab. But, she is a lab and will do bone-headed things. Last time I took care of her, I took her on her usual walk around town. There is a park where people let their dogs off-lead to run and play with each other, but it is not a formal dog park. Two dogs and their owners (who Duckie had played with in the past, but I didn’t know this) were playing and retrieving balls and toys. As I walked by, the other owners recognized Duckie and wanted her to play. I declined and walked her back home. When I told Duckie’s owner, she said it would have been fine to let her play, they knew the dogs and their owners, but I wasn’t comfortable with it.
Minnie Luna, I’d have made the same choice.
Recently, my BF was staying at a friend’s house to take care of his dogs. My BF thinks he is Cesar Milan, so he thinks all dogs are 100% under his control at all times. (Except mine, who doesn’t pay any attention to him unless he’s eating something. :D) He opened the door to walk his friend’s two dogs, leaving both of them off leash. He turned around and went back into the house to grab a cigarette and the male dog took off. (These were a pair of rat terriers.) Couldn’t find him for about a day. Finally, he found the dog at the closest vet’s office; someone had picked him up and dropped him at the vet.
I don’t care how well you think you know someone else’s dog, to me, this was the height of irresponsibility. My BF lives with me and I just dropped my dog at a friend’s house when I went out of town last weekend. “I can keep her with me!” he pled. Um. No. You can’t. You let your friend’s dog wander off and get picked up by the doggie Juvie police; I am not going to allow you to be responsible for my 15-year-old blind, deaf dog who has seizures and a Grade 4 heart murmur. Love you honey, but it’s not gonna happen. It’s not Old Dog I don’t trust. It’s the morons who think they are in control of their off-leash dogs whom I don’t trust. If your unleashed Rottie decides to have a taste of my 15-year-old Boston, there isn’t fuck all I’ll be able to do about it. (Most Rotties weigh more than I do.) Old Dog won’t even see it comin’.
Our neighbours at our last house were lazy about keeping their dogs on leashes getting into and out of cars, and keeping them in the yard when other people were getting into and out of cars, and my husband got to watch their pug getting killed on the road. A few weeks later, their second dog almost got hit in an identical situation. If you live in a city and you want your dog to stay alive, leash it.
That just sounds like such a bad idea. I guess I can’t really say they don’t do it for sure in Chicago, but if they did it would be a direct violation of leash law. There are some dog parks and beaches, which are fenced, and aside from people’s own fenced yards, those are the only places dogs can be off-leash without risking a ticket.
It’s the same here. We have designated off-leash parks that are fenced. That’s where the dog walkers take them. We have strict leash laws here too.
An update: I saw Amy last night and got more of the story. Apparently they tried to blame Amy for providing the wrong type of lead and said Kaiya got off the leash because it wasn’t the right type (??). She has one of those leashes that has a locking mechanism and will let the dog out up to about 10 or 15 feet, or you an lock it, and have a short leash.
Get this - they sent Amy (and her husband Matt) the ‘relevant’ City of Calgary bylaw to them that stated “No animal is allowed to be on a lead that is longer then 2 meters.” and said that since she was breaking the law by providing an illegal leash, they aren’t legally entitled to any money. Matt thought this law was REALLY weird since so many people here use these leads, and they are sold in stores. So, he looks up the bylaw. THEY TOOK OUT THE END OF THE SENTENCE! The rest of the line reads ‘…on city pathways.’ They were in a dog park, and off of a pathway, so they took out that part to try and make it look like they were right.
Also, in the beginning, the owner of the company said that ‘she’ had lost the dog, but Amy and Matt later found out that they had a new dog walker with the dogs that didn’t have the correct training and tried to cover it up.
Apparently the witness that called Amy and told her what happened talked to the dog walker immediately after the incident and both acknowledged that they coyote got Kaiya, so it’s not like the dog walker didn’t actually see and know what happened.
Nuke’em. Sue for everything you(r friend) can get.
Concur. A phrase from the military comes to mind: “weapons free.” It authorizes you to fire at will using your own judgment.
Set the dogs on’em
She gave them until today to respond to her letter asking for $1000 ($700 for the cost of the dog, $300 for printing posters and spending time putting them up). She has already consulted her family lawyer who said that if they don’t pay, she should sue for $25K. Regardless of if she gets that amount, the bad press will be enough.
What can people say or post online about this company that wouldn’t be considered slander or libel?