As a “non-dog” person, I’d like to add one other. If I see you and your dog walking, I will probably cross the street or put as large a distance as possible between us. Please think the most positive thoughts you can about me. I don’t hate you. I don’t hate your dog. I am, however, incredibly nervous around dogs. I’ve been bitten and snapped at more than once. I suspect it’s because I am a highly animated, nervous, arm-waving talker, and I spook them. I know this; you and your dog don’t. I’m not looking to be reassured or changed. I’m not hoping you will be friendly and interact with me to help me get over my fears. I’m just enjoying my own walk. And I’m doing what I can to keep things comfortable.
So, wave at me and smile. If you can, appreciate my consideration and the safe space I’m helping to create so you can have a pleasant walk. Really, truly, I am not angry, I’m not hostile, I’m not condemning you or your dog. I’m just not a dog person. One more owner with one more friendly, loving dog that scares the crap out of me is not going to change that. So please, let me co-exist happily with you from across the street.
I only let my dog go in the park or the field. Sometimes she goes, I scoop and toss the bag in the trash, and then she goes again. It’s not the size of the poop - sometimes getting poop #2 in a bag already filled with poop #1 is unpleasant.
I take three, just to be sure.
My pet (ha!) peeve is people who leave their dogs unattended and unleashed. For example, they might get home and open the door to let the dog(s) out to pee. I walk by with my dog and next thing I know, we’re being rushed by off-leash, not-controlled dogs. A couple times, this has resulted in a dog fight; one of those times I got bit. Most of the time, it only results in a waggy butt-sniffing session; however, I have no way of knowing how my dog is going to react to yours and vice versa. It might be fine or someone might get bitten. And your dog runs a high risk of getting hit by a car when you let it just run loose in your yard (no fencing) and it bolts across the street to get to mine. It’s lazy. Snap a goddamn leash on your dog or let them run in a fenced portion of your yard.
I’m okay with retractable leashes for little dogs, but big dogs can snap the line if they really really want to get to something. I’ve seen it happen. There was once what appeared to be a perfectly nice, friendly dog on one of those, but it was sort of rigged to a chunk of rope. The owner wanted to introduce his dog to mine but I told him I didn’t trust that sketchy leash and I wasn’t letting my dog near his unless I felt more comfortable that he had control IF the introduction went south. 90% of the time, it goes just fine, but dogs are like people in that 100% of them will not like and get along with 100% of them. There’s always going to be dogs that just rub each other the wrong way and you’ve got to be able to separate them before anyone gets hurt, humans included in that.
So shouting at me from across the street, “It’s okay! He’s friendly!” isn’t doing your dog or me or my dog any favors. He might be friendly but he might surprise or startle my dog who wasn’t planning on getting stalked and rushed on her walk. She’s a bulldog, she’s not putting up with anything she perceives as threatening.
That’s one of my pet peeves - people telling me that their dog is friendly. To quote Tommy Lee Jones, I don’t care! Keep your dog under control - I don’t want a “friendly” dog jumping up on me, and I certainly don’t want your “friendly” dog going apeshit because of my little shopping cart, which dogs seem to hate.
Who appointed you Master Alpha to decide what is and isn’t acceptable for everyone?
So you make your rules. Now what??
As a dog lover (miss my last one to much to have another quite yet) I strongly agree that pet owners need to be responsible. But it’s no one but them to decide exactly how they do that.
I’ve had a few dogs that were absolutely great off leash. I worked with them virtually continually. I will always remember they guy telling me I need to control my dog, when my chow was sitting next to me on heal as the guy stood 15 feet away because his dog was yanking his arm and the 12 foot leash.
Retractable leashes have to many benefits to be ‘outlawed’.
I’ve seen regular leashes break too. They have different size and strength retractables for larger dogs.
Some of these “rules” here seem designed solely for saving people from the most minor of inconvenience or discomfort. IMHO.
And isn’t that what etiquette really is? It’s not saying “no dogs shall be walked untethered from said owners”, but “we get along better if we can agree that dogs should be leashed just to make sure that we can mitigate any unpleasantries”.
I even see unleashed dogs in parks that don’t allow dogs at all. Everybody thinks their dog is an exception to the rule I guess. More than once I’ve had random dogs run up to me on a trail, no other human in sight. Later, maybe a moment, maybe minutes, the owner shows up to helpfully inform me that “it’s OK, he’s friendly.” Good thing he was friendly.
I guess they just seem so minor or go full speed to worst case “what if” scenarios. Honestly, if a dog was yapping at my shopping cart or an unleashed dog runs up while my dog is on a lead, it just really doesn’t bother me. But I take your point.
The laws are there to protect you and your dog from mine, not just the other way around. If we were allowed off leash then I might walk with my biter down the street you have your obedient dog unleashed and who cares who was obedient, now we have someone with an injury. If off leash is so important to your dog, build a fence, or find a dog park.
Soooo many times I’ve been walking with a reactive dog and have been rushed by an off leash pup with the person shouting “he’s friendly!” Well that’s great, but mine isn’t and being mobbed by any dog, friendly or not, is going to cause a bad scene. IF your dog is so reliable that he can be trusted with 99.9% certainty to stay in his yard off leash even with the distraction of other dogs walking by, then I suppose that’s your call (not one I would make with my own 99.9% reliable, friendly dog) but if he’s running up to me while I’m walking past that’s a pretty good indicator that he’s not well trained enough to be trusted off leash and unfenced.
On Saturday, we walked by an untethered, unleashed dog just sitting on a porch next to his owner. I shouted across the street, “Is your dog leashed?” “No,” he shouted back. The dog looked like it wasn’t going anywhere. “But he’s not going to move, right?” The guy just shrugged at me. The dog didn’t move. That’s the first time I’ve ever actually seen the dog not make a liar out of its owner. I still hate it though. You never know when you’re passing by a dog that will leap off the porch after you or if that’s the one dog who really is under vocal control. And now I would like to take dog training lessons from that guy on the porch. Heh.
If all dogs must be treated as if they have no manners, why would people bother to teach them any?
Dogs are capable of doing actual work. That’s why they exist. Treating them like they are all incompetent and unpredictable is unnecessary and detrimental.
Once my completely trustworthy off-leash-trained dog did jump from the open window of my parked car to cross four lanes of traffic to attack a guy. The girl he was about to grab was pretty grateful even though she herself feared dogs.
I think a lot depends on your dog. Mine does fine on a retractable leash. She gets to hurry to different spots to check her pee mail and if I see a biker or walker come within range I reel her in and hold her tight. Most dogs we see are friendly and when we pass each other they sniff butts and are cool.
What grinds me are the people that have those wastes of fur yippy yappy dogs that they let in the front yard penned in by their invisible fence. We can be walking on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street and the yippy yappies start going bananas from when we first appear in view to when they lose sight of us. Dudes, bring in your loudmouth annoying pieces of shit when they first start going nuts.
Retractable leashes are fine as long as they’re strong enough for your dog and you know how to use them. I found it particularly useful to have one for those occasions when I did want a really short leash, like walking past a stranger on a very narrow pavement (we have a lot of those here, so they can’t be avoided). With one that you can’t retract, you have to loop it up and it’s not very secure at all.
With one dog I used to walk, the only way to shorten her leash was to loop it around my wrist, which hurt me the one time she pulled sharply away (when another dog was trying to attack her). I bought her a retractable leash to use when she was with me. She was bigger than my dog, so I bought a bigger, stronger retractable leash.
I’d add: in an off-leash area, act as if your dog is on an extendable leash connected to your eyes. Never let the dog out of your sight or further away than you could easily run and help out if they got into trouble. If you’re a crap runner, this won’t be far.
Don’t let your dog off-leash if they won’t come back to you quickly when you call them. Even if you need to bring a dog toy with you to tempt them, this is fine in the short term. But you do need to be able to get your dog back to you.
