DOH!
Used car…
No bad dogs, just bad owners…
You know, it may be one thing for a person to think, “Yeah, my dog is good, sweet, and harmless–it’s OK to have him/her off the leash right now,” but it is QUITE another, IMO, for a person to KNOW that the dog (however friendly) is FRIGHTENING people, and do nothing about it.
All (valid) points aside about the unpredictability of doggie behavior (one of my “sweet” girls has made a believer out of me in regards to that one), if you know that your rampant-running dog is frightening another person (or that person’s child or dog), then I don’t care if your dog is blind, toothless, and weighs 4 lbs.–you need to get it on the leash and under control.
And Weimaraners are big, crazy motherfuckers! I lived with one once, and loved him to death, but can understand, even as a dog-lover, how one might scare the crap out of someone.
Had a Weimeraner once, and he was the gentlest, sweetest thing. They are pointer-retrievers and are bred (and normally trained) to SHOW a hunter where the prey is, and if requested to do so, bring the prey back completely unharmed. That said, they ARE big suckers and like any dog should always be leashed when in public. Always. They are also very fast runners, and strong. They could easily knock down a small person even if no harm was intended. Some people regardless of how many college degrees they may or may not have, have not got the sense god gave little green apples. The idjit got what she deserved. She is very lucky no actual physical harm was done or she would have deserved a lot worse IMO.
I almost started a pit thread about unleashed dogs myself. My husband was out walking our shepherd mix dog last Sunday, when someone let their dog out of the house without a leash. The dog saw my dog and ran up and tackled her. Normally she loves to play and will wrestle with the best of them, but this dog completely got her off guard from behind and took her down. He was not aggressive with her, but tackled her hard enough that she hurt herself and cost us a vet visit and now is on pain meds. :(.
We often take her to a dog park where everyone lets their dogs off leash to play, but this is a dog park, not where kids play, and everyone knows each other and the regular dogs that are there. I don’t have a problem with letting dogs play off leash in the right environment, but I would never allow her to be off leash walking along the road or in a play area. Those dog owners are ignorant - even if they don’t think their dogs will hurt anyone, what’s to stop someone from hurting their dogs?
By the way, this is absolutely flawless logic.
I guess that since you complained, the terrorists have already won. :rolleyes:
Yep. My Gracie is a Mastiff - which generally translates to “interactive rug.” Big, lazy, and all over the floor unless treats are involved. Again, I know my dog’s basic personality is gentle… BUT. This sucker weighs in at over a hundred pounds and could VERY easily hurt someone. She has knocked me over just by leaning on me while I am standing still, and her big honkin’ paws are heavy and capable of ripping skin off someone’s arm or leg.
I totally deserved the dressing-down I got when she broke away from my daughter the other day, and I am so relieved that no one was hurt… but if someone had been, I would also have deserved any criminal charges that resulted. 
I’d say you’re batting 1.000 also, for your judgement in dealing with these fucked up situations you’ve run into lately. Good job.
We have two large dogs, a Golden and a half-Golden half Yellow Lab. They’re both around 70 pounds, so that’s a lot of dog. They are NEVER allowed outside off-leash. They really are about the most harmless dogs I’ve ever met, especially Rusty the Golden, but they are large and enthusiastic.
When we have visitors who are nervous about them, or workers around the house, the dogs go upstairs or outside, depending on what is more convenient. They have VERY loud barks but NO bite whatsoever, but I’D be nervous around them if I heard those barks but didn’t know the dogs.
Anybody who’d get mad at YOU because their dog is scaring you should not have a dog. Yes, it may be the most harmless animal ever. However, I am cautious around strange dogs until they prove their friendliness. Our plumber now knows that our dogs are okay, but we had to first make introductions. (The mailman, though, is Evil Incarnate, regardless of the fact that they HAVE been introduced to him. We MUST bark at the Evil Mailman!)
I used to work for a pest control company spraying farms and farmers have some of the biggest dogs you have ever seen…none are ever tied either.
One place had two dogs that looked like rottweilers except twice as big…they never barked but followed me around the entire time…silently. Scary but I am used to big dogs(have a St Bernard myself).
Of course if they had rushed me they would of gotten a face full of pesticide…I am not that much of an idiot(I told their owner this too what would happen if they didn’t behave)
BTW I was sent there in the first place because the guy who was supposed to do the farm was unnerved by those dogs…I ended up keeping the account the whole summer because no one else would go there.
Another place had a very big St Bernard and when I went to pet him he growled and I swear I could feel the vibrations deep in my bones…I decided not to pet him that day but by the end of the summer he and I were good friends.
I WAS bitten that summer…by a fart of a dog that couldn’t of weighed 10 pounds…darn yippers…THEY are the ones you most have to watch out for in my experience.
A related anectode, from the other perspective:
I have a small dog now, but used to have a 55 pound mutt who looked enough like a Samoyed that I’ve had Samoyed breeders ask me how old my Sammy was. She was a big, white, fluffy lamb of a dog, and kids LOVED her. Having no children myself, the dog was not used to having kids around. She never, ever snapped or barked at a child, and we had even caught children pretending to eat out of the dog’s bowl while the doggy watched placidly, but still, I was nervous when kids were around and always tried to keep a close eye on her.
I can’t TELL you the number of times that people would allow their toddlers to come running full speed at my leashed dog, because they wanted to pet the doggy. Most of the time I’d tell the dog to sit and gently show the child how to pet her softly on the back. One incident, in particular, comes to mind. My friends and I had just come into town from a backpacking trip. We’d been out for a few days, and both we and the dogs were hot, hungry, and tired. We made a beeline towards a local restaurant that had patio seating that backed up to a pedestrian mall that was dog-friendly. Although dogs weren’t allowed in the restaurant, you could easily pick a table next to the enclosing wrought iron gate, and tie your dogs up right next to you but on the other side of the gate. This was the kind of place where people did this all the time - dogs were not a novelty. We did so with my dog and my friend’s Chesapeake Bay Retriever.
The dogs were exhausted from the hike. They drank some water that we gave them, and fell asleep. About 20 minutes later, we look up to see a couple toddlers coming full speed towards the dogs. Although there was absolutely NO reason to suspect that either of these dogs would have any problems with the kids, I just didn’t want to push the situation. I called out to the mother and said “Hey, my dogs aren’t used to kids, it’s probably best if you don’t let the kids pet the dogs.”
She answered “Oh, my kids LOVE dogs, it’s no problem!”
I tried again “Well, they’re reallly tired right now, and not used to kids. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“No, really, they’ll just pet them for a second or so.”
“Lady, NO. Please get your KIDS off my DOG!” At that point the kids were close, and my dog was lazily waking up and looking at them. At that point, the lady mumbled something about unfriendly people, and called her kids off.
What kind of a parent does this? Don’t they understand that you have NO idea how a strange dog is going to react to your kid? When the dog’s owner stands up and says “Um, hey, that’s not a good idea” isn’t there SOME glimmer in your brain that maybe - just maybe - your kids could live without petting the doggy just this once?
Another incident, this time with an adult. My same friend was doing errands one day, and had her dog in the back of her truck. The truck had an enclosed shell, and she left one of the windows slightly open so the dog had some fresh air. She came out of the store she was in to find the police at her car with a man. Seems that the guy had STUCK HIS HAND IN HER TRUCK to “pet the doggy” and the dog reportedly snapped at him and started barking. The police asked the man to show the injury, but there was nothing to show - if the dog HAD snapped, it hadn’t hit his hand at all. He readily admitted he put his hand in the truck.
My friend had to pay a fine AND keep her dog at her house for 10 days. This was a major inconvience for her - she had a tiny house, and no yard to speak of. She was the type that lived out of her truck a lot, and she did construction for a living. The dog basically went everywhere with her and either hung out in the back of the truck when she worked or (mostly) was allowed to be with her while she did her job. All this, because some guy decided to put his hand IN HER TRUCK to pet the dog.
Another big dog story. I also once upon a time had a St. Bernard who was extraordinarily gentle. But for some reason she was also terrified – and I mean TERRIFIED – of strangers. She would go through a wall if necessary to avoid someone she didn’t know and trust. Not attack – retreat infinitely. However, when she saw someone coming up toward the house, she would bark, and she had a very large, deep bark. And she was big enough to see out the windows without even stretching. She was the best guard dog in the world because absolutely nobody would even think about trying to get into the house after seeing that huge, slobbering monster threatening to eat them alive.
Our dalmatian was a big baby most of the time. She loved attention from people, and the main reason I chained her when we had visitors was because she could be annoying in that “Pay attention to me NOW” sort of way.
Until the day the chimney cleaners came over. These guys got out of their truck and she was chained about 10’ away. One of them went to pet her, and before he took 2 steps, she was barking and growling like I’d never heard before! He wisely backed up, and I took them inside to tend to the fireplace.
To this day, I don’t know why she reacted like that. She never did it again to anyone else, but that one occasion made me very careful about controlling her around strangers.
Thank you for calling the police. I get so irritated by irresponsible people, particularly with pets (and I love dogs), and in some ways I’m more irritated with people who complain, but then do not do anything. Good for you, tlw!
Really, really stupid people. Those are the kind that should not be allowed to have pets.
The whole point was that they were in an area that required leashing. PERIOD.
If you see a restaurant sign that says “No shirt, no shoes, no service” you don’t go in anyway and say something like, “well, yes but MY feet and bare chest are okay”
The sort of attitude those women displayed ties in with my biggest all-time pet peeve…
People who think they’re better than anyone else and that “The Rules” don’t apply to his/her highness as they do to the “little people”.
Bully for YOU tlw for your actions and your calm decisive, take no bulls**t response to these two idiots!!!
Good lord, Athena. Are my parents the only people in the world who still tell kids, “You keep trying to pet strange dogs without permission, and one of these days you’ll pull back a bloody stump” ?
And it’s gonna be the DOG who gets the heat on that one. That used to scare the shit out of me - some idiot wants to pet my dog, my dog snaps, end result: court says my dog needs to be put to sleep.
Bah.
People never cease to amaze me. I was riding my horse in a public park (bridle/hiking trail) last year when a large dog started charging down the path making a b-line for us. I kept looking for the owners and they were nowhere to be found - even though it’s the law here that dogs must be on a leash at all times. Now, I have a horse who will try to squash dogs who she deems are not respecting her so I was more concerned about what she was going to do to the dog than what it might do to her. The dog gets right up behind my horse (we need a Darwin award for dogs) and tries to sniff her butt. This goes on for a bit as I try to shoo it away with no luck. Frankly, I’m surprised my horse didn’t launch him, but she must have been in a good mood that day. Finally, the owners show up - they were so far down the path it took them quite awhile to join us. And then they say, “It’s ok, he won’t hurt your horse.” I told them that I’m pretty sure he won’t hurt my horse, but that I hope when my horse splits his brainpan in half that they realize it will be totally their fault. They put the dog on a leash and hauled him away from me. How can you not know that a large 1000 lb animal is not the best playmate for your dog? I also had 2 off-leash black labs nearly send my horse and I over a cliff when they ran up the embankment and under my horse’s legs. Owner never apologized, but that’s another story.
I’m sorry you also got to meet some of the members of The Rules Don’t Apply to Me Club.
I was in the park once beading a necklace, when two women with unleashed dogs met. One of the women offered to put her dog on a leash. The other woman said “Don’t bother, my dog loves other dogs. He’d never hurt anyone blah blah blah”. Then the other woman starts talking about how gentle her dog is. As they were busy trying to stoke their egos about how nice their dogs were, the dogs start chaseing each other-
and run right through my container of bead. thousands of beads go flying all over the grass. I spent the next hour picking beads out of clods of dirt.
One of the women offered to pay me for the beads. But I didn’t want money. I just wanted that not to have happened!
Yeah, apparently Mom and Dad were the only ones who ever added, “And it’ll be your own damn fault.” (Well, they never actually said it, but it was certainly implied.)
I’m really of two minds about the situation in the OP. The woman should not have been violating the rules by having her dogs off-leash, partly because it’s a rule yoiu accept when going to the park and mainly for the dogs’ safety. Nor should she have been an asshole when asked to leash the dogs. She was certainly deserving of her citation and fine.
However, I do think the OP was being a smidge melodramatic. I mean, we’re talking about an open area where she could have circled around the dogs the same as her husband did, not an enclosed barnyard where a rabid St. Bernard was holding her prisoner in a broken-down car. Cornered is probably too strong a word. Nobody else seemed to have any problems moving away.
If I’d been watching, I have to admit that I would probably have been rolling my eyes about the whole situation and muttering to myself, “Oh, for God’s sake, lady, it’s just a dog. Leave if you’re leaving, but quit screaming about it.” Then I would have called Aminal Control to come get the dogs.
From the OP:
Are you sure you wouldn’t like to revise your statement, crazycatlady? How do you arrive at the conclusion that the OP was being melodramatic, and could have easily walked away?