And I will be allowed to have fun watching the cops remove you and your dog from the park so that my dogs can have fun and I some peace of mind. Whose fun takes precedence? Sorry the world ain’t like when you were growing up. I wish it were.
I pay my taxes, too. Part of my tax money has gone to a sign in the park that says “Dogs must be leashed.”
And it’s “dissent.”
Well, I gave it a day, CrazyCatLady and now I’m sure you’re talking to hear yourself talk. You made a comment, to wit:
I pointed out that whether people call the police or not is not indicative of whether there’s a threat. That was the obvious point of this comment of mine:
You obviously know about that incident. And you’re obviously ignoring the relevance to your comment about the perception of threat.
I was wrong just above. You’re not listening to yourself talk. You’re listening to yourself babble.
wolfman: Would you be so kind as to cite which particular part of the federal or state constitution or which law, ordinance, regulation, or code provides that only those who pay taxes are to be protected by the police?
Since when does being a taxpayer make it acceptable to break the law? There are parks that have “dog runs”, fenced areas where your dogs can run around “off-lease” (I don’t know why you would lease a dog, I just buy mine:)). If you don’t want to leash your dog, take them to such a park and let them roam. Or just don’t buy a dog you consider too big for the yard you have, or whatever. But don’t use paying taxes as an excuse for illegal behavior.
I have a three-year-old who loves dogs, and whenever we encounter one, in the park or wherever, she always wants to pet the doggie. I will not allow her to approach the dog without the owner’s permission to do so. Some dogs are good animals, but not kid-friendly. Some owners prefer their dogs not be petted by every child who thinks the dog is cute. Whatever. Getting the owner’s permission to pet is good manners and practical from a safety stand point.
That makes no freakin sense. Would you like to expand on this nonsense?
hmm, Here I was thinking a leashed dog is a safe dog (safe for the dog as well as the humans it owns)
Our dogs LOVE people of any size or shape, especially the Golden. Still, I’d get on any parent’s case for letting their kid come running full-tilt at them. There is a vast difference between asking, “Can my kid pet your dog?” and having one of us introduce the dog to the kid than a two-year-old charging at them with Mommy assuming it’ll be fine because Goldens are such sweet dogs. (Which they are, but any dog can be startled.)
You should have seen a friend’s eighteen-month-old fussing over Rusty a couple of weeks ago. Adorable blond baby petting a beautiful red dog…awwwwww!
And Weimeraners are big dogs! I would feel a bit threatened if three of them were coming after me, even with friendly intentions, off-leash. Especially if I had a baby! If that woman wanted her dogs off-leash she should have at the very least been ready and willing to put them back on if the dogs were SCARING people for God’s sake.
Qad, I’m not trying to accomplish anything. I was just stating my opinion on the subject, which was still perfectly acceptable the last time I checked. You asked if I wanted to change my opinion, and I politely declined your offer. How my opinion that the wording of the OP was a little hyperbolic, and thus melodramatic, got twisted into me calling this woman a liar, I don’t know. Perhaps you can explain it to me.
Wolfman, that’s the stupidest, most irresponsible thing I’ve ever read. Not only are you deliberately breaking the law, and the rules of the park, you’re endangering your dog. Not only is an unleashed dog at risk for running into the road, or breaking a leg in snake hole, or getting attacked by another animal, there are people who will probably see it as a threat. Some of those folks will just call Animal Control on your law-breaking ass. Some of them carry guns for self-protection and won’t hesitate to use them. Besides, if some kid pokes your dog in the eye or something and gets bitten, you and the dog are in deep shit. He’s gonna get classified as a vicious animal and will be living on borrowed time.
Either take your dog to the dog park, or get a house with a big, fenced yard. Or better yet, don’t get a dog at all if you’re going to deliberately endanger it.
I have one of those dogs (currently warming and hair-izing my lap) who freaks out at other dogs, especially when momma’s holding the leash. Barks, growls, tries to take on a huge Saint Bernard (thank god it just held her head in it’s jaws…eep)…Since that she’s always on leash, period. Even in our yard she’s on a 15 foot tether that keeps her well away from the street.
I’m less worried about what she’ll do to people (she doesn’t weigh 12 lbs) but she can bite very badly…I have scars to prove it… But she will get her butt kicked! The Little-Big-Dog syndrome. 
The other two are fine…Doxie gets wiggly around other dogs…and is always leashed when they come by (until the owner says it’s ok for them to run around together) and the shepherd is always at heel protecting us when another dog comes by…not too hard to grab his collar and dig your feet in if he decides to pull you on over.
I really don’t understand why people let their dogs off-leash around people/cars/dogs…I want my dogs safe, and god forbid any of them take a bite out of someone…I know the shepherd, despite his advanced age, will still rip out someone’s throat were they to try to hurt me. I want to keep you and my dog alive, thank you very much.
Much sympathy to the OP… I understand our shepherd scares people (he weighs more than our neighbor…), I Don’t see how that lady didn’t realize her dogs were royally freaking you out… yeesh. Gives the rest of us a bad name.
Well, CCL, we’re reading the same words, but taking different messages away from it, apparently. Rather than argue semantics and infer meanings and feelings that probably aren’t present, I’ll just consider you a fellow person of good will with whom I’m missing seeing eye to eye, for unknown reasons.
tlw,
As the owner of 2 Weimaraners myself, I offer my opinion that you were quite justified in both your fear and your subsequent actions. While the breed is generally good natured and friendly, they are fair-sized (my dog tips the scales in excess of 90 pounds, and the bitch runs nearly to 70), and generalizations about a breed do not necessarily extend to every individual. Any dog this size has the potential to cause greivous injury, and how are you to know the individual’s temperment? Furthermore, the Weimar’s friendliness becomes a liability when children are involved, as they are apt to scare a small child witless or even inadvertently injure them as they attempt to “play”.
As for the cluelessness of the moronic owners, as described in your OP, well, what can I say? It is a shame that fine dogs of a venerable breed can be purchased by any slack-jawed neanderthal with a few hundred simoleans in their bank account, but such is life. Thank you for reporting them to the police. Perhaps if it happens often enough the ASPCA will confiscate the dogs and turn them over to the WCA rescue before they are run over by a truck or euthanized for injuring someone.
We had a small Westie that my sister named Lassie. :rolleyes:
(We had to have her put to sleep last month :()
She was the cutest little dog, but in her old age, due to arthritis and such, tended to be quite snappish if someone came up to her and made sudden moves. As such, she was almost never off her leash, except on the porch or in the yard WHEN WE WERE THERE. (I mean outside, of course-she never wore one in the house!)
If someone’s kid had come barreling at her, trying to pet her, she would may have bitten them. Animals don’t like being rushed at, or cornered. I’ll never forget the one Christmas when my sister and my cousin Maria cornered my cat, Fluffy, who then scratched the hell out of both of them.
I live in a neighborhood which has strict leash rules, which, of course, everyone ignores, except for me. When I let my dog outside, she is on a cable line which lets her roam the yard but keeps us “legal.” I can’t tell you how many times I have had to go outside and break up dog fights involving neighboring pooches which have wandered over into our yard. My dog is a good fighter. I worry she will hurt another dog, or be injured herself. No one seems to share my concern.
After the last fight, I distangled the dogs, and dragged the other dog back across the street to its house. The neighbor lady laughed when I told her about the fight and said she knew her dog was a “scrapper.” She was unconcerned that it might be hurt, or that my dog could be. (This same lady also finds it amusing when her dog rips knocks over our cans and shreds our trash bags. She told a mutual friend that one of the funniest things she had ever seen was when her dog knocked my husband down when he was bringing our carry-out dinners into the house. It was hilarious when our food went all over the ground!)
I keep my dog chained because I fear for her safety. She could cross the park to the highway. She could eat something poisonous. She could bite a child, or get into a fight. She could be stolen or harmed by a mean person. God, there are myriad dangers out there. Why don’t people care enough about their dogs to protect them?
Because hyperbole, melodrama and exaggeration are all forms of adding untrue elements to a story. Untrue = lie. In other words, you suggested that you believed that I made things up to make the story more dramatic. You called me a liar, just using euphemistic terms.
You seemed to find it odd that I would gave the dog to my husband rather than the baby, and I explained that. It was easier, and the dog was making the situation worse because of his response to the other dog.
You seemed to find it odd that my husband left me and the baby there, and I explained that. He was able to leave – and probably thought that I was right behind him, I was trying to be – and he went to secure our dog and bring the car closer to facilitate my quicker exit from the situation.
You thought it odd that no one else said anything to the unleashed dogs’ owner, and I explained that. I was closest to the dogs and her, and everyone else nearby was beating a retreat to safer territory.
Most of all, you were doubtful that I was “cornered” by the dogs, and didn’t think that it was safe to leave. I explained that too, at length.
But your entire attitude was summed up thusly. You said, that if you were there, you would’ve thought:
“Oh, for God’s sake, lady, it’s just a dog. Leave if you’re leaving, but quit screaming about it.”
You weren’t there. And it may have been “just a dog” but dogs can hurt, and dogs can kill, and I had to be concerned about the safety of my infant, my unborn child and myself. And moreover, I never screamed. I had a small child strapped to my body. Had I screamed, I would’ve scared her more than she already was, not to mention hurting her ears. I never spoke any more loudly than was necessary for the dogs’ owner to hear me from five yards away (the closest she ever got) over the barking of the dog, the protestations of her companion and the crying of my baby. I had no intention of screaming lest the dogs take it as a signal that I was being hostile to their mommy. I had no intention of doing anything that the dogs considered hostile.
You may cling to your opinion that I am a liar all you wish. But you would be wrong.
My Golden, Gordy, was let off-leash when the park was deserted. He’d tear around for a bit then come and settle itno the walk close to me. Super friendly, darling boy from a retriver breed (they don’t like to bite down), but again, and 80 pound hyper animal. I could handle him because I grew up with him and got used to having to set my feet and dig in to hang on to the leash if he tried to go say hi to something. (a kid, a rabbit, etc)
But I’d never let him off the leash around people who weren’t family. He’s a sweetie and he neevr did anything more threatening than growl at a guy who tried to mug my mom. (He decided to take a different course of action at that point.) But he’s still an animal and they have different instincts they run on. Not logic, instincts. You did the right thing, though hopefully those dogs will get more responsible parents.
I adore big dogs and probably would have been delighted to meet the pack of them, if they were under control and the owners said it was okay. Otherwise, they are not predictable animals.
Sounds like a job for the Humane Society. I’d report her for not giving a shit if her dog gets injured while illegally of his leash.
I have a 4-year-old Standard Schnauzer who, while reasonably obedient most of the time, will occasionally decide to ignore any and all commands issued at her by us foolish humans. For this reason alone, the only time she is off-leash outside is when she is inside a dog park. Even though she will heel, stay and come on command, I can’t take the risk that one of those occasional misbehaving incidents will get her run over or savaged by a strange dog.
It doesn’t matter that she is the most mild-mannered dog I have ever met and has never growled, snapped at or bitten anyone. She is still basically a (small, rather dim-witted) wolf underneath all that beard and waggy-tailness, and there are lots of other dogs around here whose innate wolfness is rather less concealed and who would not take well to Bea bouncing towards them like an small, shaggy impala.
I have a big dog, 120 lbs, and I keep her leashed when we go out. She gets a little bummed out at the dog park because she can’t run free, but I can’t trust her to come when I call her reliably enough to let her go. She’s a total sweetie and just loves to play, but I don’t let her go up to other dogs unless I okay it with the owners, and I insist that kids ask their parents before petting her, because I think it’s great training for the kids.
Sure, she’d love to run free but it’s not feasible, so when we walk it’s a minimum of two miles so she gets her exercise. She’s sassy and healthy and gorgeous and I defy anyone to tell me that she’s “missing out” because I don’t allow her to be an uncivilized, undisciplined, unsocialized nuisance! People who don’t control their animals are shitheads and unfortunately it’s the animals who pay the price for the owner’s assholishness.
I had to respond the this one because it was way over the top.
Am I the only one who has ever seen a dog let loose run around a park? they sprint form one end to the other making turn around imaginary obstacles. They are having a fucking blast. Unless you had a leash about 1000 feet long nobody would ever be able to keep up, and unless a dog is let to run free every once in a while you are a cruel bastard.
an unleashed, well trained, and eye-kept-on-dog is every bit as safe. And it’s having a much better time.
I have no problem with the OP and in fact I am more pissed off about that ignorant dog owner who let her ill-mannered beasts loose, because it hurts all dogs as it creates the terror about dogs that is so prevalent throughout this thread. By my dogs(who don’t actually exist) will be allowed to be dogs.
Our apartment building contains some commercial space, and there’s a storeowner with a sweet gentle pit bull which she, for incomprehensible reasons, lets out to stand on the New York City sidewalk off-leash a good portion of the time.
Having known the dog for a long time now, I believe she (the dog) will never attack someone.
But it’s just a matter of time before one of the many freaked out passers-by claims injury of some sort and files a lawsuit against the building or has the dog destroyed or has the storeowner arrested for negligent behavior.