...to expect dog owners to use leads in a park - I got bitten today and am fuming!!!

Haychee, for once i agree with everything you say! well at least on your last post, ive not read the rest lol.

To the OP i am very sorry you were bitten and for the reason that we cant screen owners for responsibility i think there should be dog bans in parks and public places. There other places to walk dogs where they can be left off lead. If your argument is one that there isnt such a place near you, then my counter arguement is simple - get a dog that doesnt need to be let off, or dont get one, its not fair to the dog anyway.

To be fair i think most dog owners are responsible, however i walked through greenwhich park a few months back to be horrified at the amount of pit bull TYPE dogs being paraded about by thuggish looking gangs of teenagers who clearly couldnt control the animals if their lives depended on it, needless to say, our walk in the park was cut short.

good idea Haychee.

End of.

lol

Hi zookeeper lets not let this turn into us against the rest of them again today, i need a rest!

ground(d)og day

Stop and step away from the thread

Report it, take photos of the wound and google dog bite which give advice about suing them (if you can trace them).

You didn't call the "salad dodgers" to their face did you?

oh my god! im trying hard not to get involved in this one. Just will say though, just as there are bad dogs and/or bad owners there are alot of good dogs with good owners. Some of us spend alot of time ensuring our dogs are controllable and some dont bother at all. As discussed yesterday, there should be places were kids can go (parks i mean) without having to be hassled by dogs and visa versa.
Please dont tar all dogs and owners with the same brush. Take the example of guide dogs for the blind. Dogs are very intelligent creatures and with the right training they are capable of doing some of the most amazing things. That of course doesnt mean to say though that an owner can be trusted when they say "oh he wont hurt you" or whatever. I certainly teach my children not to approach any dog they dont know at all, unless i have said its ok.

lol Floria - just noticed that you resurrected an old thread...

Whilst I have a lot of sympathy with the OP and agree dogs should be on leads in parks (but not everywhere fgs!), I also think that quite a few mumsnetters should be leashed and muzzled. Would make life infinitely more pleasant.

Cheers Mrs B...that must have been the one that was suggested to me [rolls eyes emoticon]...Thanks for the link I'll have a glance through for now...got to go to work in a bit . See you round

no worries
there was an enormous dogs-on-leads thread earlier this week which (fortunately) got too big to post on but did raise some of the same points - have a read here if you have a spare hour or two...

oops ..was looking for messages about dogs and didnt notice how old this was..oh well

sorry if you wanted to join in Floria, but this thread died back in April...

-" i would NEVER put one of those harness things on a child, it isn't natural to have a child on a lead and as some parents seem to pull and push the child on a lead i think it looks very cruel, but i agree that ALL dogs should be on a lead, dogs are animals, children are not"

Sorry! Had to join in...pmsl at this comment...if humans are not animals what are we? vegetables? minerals?...children need teaching just as much as dogs (dogs have comparable intelligence to a 4 yr old child. Unfortunately no opposable thumbs, speech ability and only 42 teeth to make their feelings known with)...It isnt "natural" to have a dog on a lead either...but dog owners use them to ensure their dogs safety ...a harness on a child can save it from a nasty fall and will certainly save it from running into a road, getting lost or being abducted like poor James Bulger (and children are not animals!)My child isnt due until October but when it is walking it will most certainly be on reins if only to save it from grazed knees.

Sorry for the OP, hope the bite is better...and particulary sorry that one pair of idiots who shouldnt be allowed a pet can give the responsible dog owning public (and their pets) a bad name.

Mrs Gumby..hope your leg is getting better. Did you have a tetanus?
Dh got bitten last year (he was out running and the dog just ran up and bit him). He had a tetanus and the doctor encouraged him to report it. He reported it to the Police and the Dog warden. The owners had a visit from both. The police and dog warden asked him what he wanted to do about it and they said they take it very seriously when a dog has bitten.Dh said he wanted the dog on a short lead and muzzled when out.

No sorry all animals are unpredictable, however much training you give them and however well behaived they are you cannot control their thoughts & actions.

I have spent a lifetime training horses to top standards, these animals were the best and well mannared around but never would I say oh he wont kick or he wont bite, you just dont know, One of our horses we bred from a foal, knew his line, he was exceptionally well behaved, didnt' kick, bite, rear, buck or anything, you could put a hose pipe over his head 100% bombproof. Once day an employee went into his stable and the horse pinned him to the back wall & bit him in the waist pearcing him, blood everywere! I would have put a child on this horse.

Sometimes we need to step back and think, we are in control of a potential killer, every animal has its first. To simply have the dog on a lead or wearing a muzzel its a small price to pay for safety & possibly the life of a child.

There are dogs in my local park who stay on their leads as the owners can't control them so daren't let them off the lead.
Owners generally know if their dog is unpredictable, ie has not been well trained/socialised for whatever reason. A dog owner may not say anything but they know.
Whenever my dog is chased by another dog and the owners can't get it back then they know it's not well trained and therefore is unpredictable.

but that is such a non-point. what dog owner is going to say 'yes, i think my dog will bite people'? if they're 'unpredictable' then you simple don't know.

If I ever thought my dog would pound up to someone and bite then I would never have her off the lead. The dogs to avoid in my experience are the dogs on leads as they have not been trained/socialised properly and I always give them a wide berth.
Animals are unpredictable, very well trained dogs aren't, we just get the stories of the badly trained ones not the millions of ones who are fine.

well to be fair, if all dogs were required to be muzzled in public then no-one would be able to draw any conclusion as to their nature, so it is as simple as that.
i don't advocate the muzzling of all dogs in public, as it happens, i think that goes too far. but a lead, really? is that so much to ask if there are children about? even one of those great big long stretchy ones?

I am a dog owner, In the case of dogs for the blind and dogs for the hearing they obviously need to be able to use their mouth & I have always seen them wearing a jacket stating they are working dogs, but for the majority of dogs out there in public places, Yes I think they should be muzzled. Animals are unpredictable, you should never trust any animal 100%

I agree when you see a dog wearing a muzzle you instinctivley think it will bite but logically it wont - It cant! If I was walking in a public park with children playing I would rather see a dog wearing a muzzel pounding towards my dd than a dog without.

I had a friend who had a big dog, this dog was trusted, he was a lovely dog who you could do anyting with, grew up with children and everything. One day the dog was walking past another friends dd and it attacked her, out of the blue, the child did nothing to the dog merely walked past, didn't even acknowledge it!

I also have a large dog - a red setter, so quite unusual where we are so she always attracts attention. We did training classes a she was the first dog we ever had and we wanted to know we had her under control when she was off the lead and I'm 100% confident that she will come back to me as she knows who's boss. And although I feel as though I'm in total control of her I don't like her being off the lead when there are other people around who are afraid of dogs. There are plenty of adults that are scared of dogs as well. I don't let her go up to anyone we don't know or who doesn't make the first move.
However I'm totally paranoid that I will meet people like the above posters that because my dog is in the vague vicinity of a child she is a deadly threat.
The school holidays together with great weather like we have now means that we don't go to our local park which is about 5 mins walk away. Instead we go to the local woods and river banks about 15 mins walk away so we can relax with our dog instead of being worried. So this means that my 3 dcs cannot go and play with their friends at the park because even if we had the dog on the lead we would be surrounded by children wanting to pat the dog as she is a lovely looking dog.
I think there was a thread about this before and somebody posted that we should treat dogs the same way we treat cars. We teach our children to be safe when crossing roads etc so we should also teach then how to behave around dogs, as they can also be useful and give lots of pleasure but can also kill and maim.

Dogs should not be in children areas unless muzzled....why cant there be percific dog walking areas.....what annoys me is dog mess as some people do not pick it up. What annoys me most is parents who dont pick up dog poo. I see this when I am in the gym, mums with pushchairs taking dogs out for a walk not picking up the mess...grrrrrrrrr this really peeves me off even though there are dog mess bins there. Where are the wardens or whoever are supposed to make people pick it up. I wouldnt want my child falling in it (rant) !