Apparently you "shouldn't walk a dog if you don't want other dogs to say hello"

[daffodilandtulip]

I've posted similar before and I know I'll get the dog rights vigilante posters but I'm so fucking angry.

Walking along a footpath by houses with my dog on the lead. A larger dog comes bounding up with no owner in sight, snarling, clawing and jumping on my dog so I end up picking her up.

Dog owner appears and I ask the owner to call the dog off. Dog doesn't respond and is clawing at my legs. I tell the owner that he shouldn't have the dog off lead if he can't control it. He says the dog isn't doing any harm, he just wants to say hello. I said that my dog clearly didn't want it to so can you call your dog off. He tells me that he can do what he likes with his dog and that I'm a miserable cow. He finally catches the dog and calls me a stupid bitch.

And this is why retrospective dog laws won't matter. There needs to be checks/training/license from day one. Make it hard for people like this to get dogs in the first place. I'm so sick of not being able to go fucking anywhere without a "friendly" dog inviting itself. When will this end?!

My dog is put on a lead near livestock, near horses, on roads, in parks. He is let off in large rural areas where he approaches other dogs in a natural dog-like way. I said in my very first post that he has excellent recall and if we see a nervous dog, an elderly dog or a dog who doesn't want to play, he is recalled and he listens.
The point is it isn't your decision if another dog is going to be playing or not.

Your criteria for whether your dog approaches other dogs seems to be based on whether YOU think the other dog wants to play.
In reality it's basic courtesy to not allow your dog to approach on lead dogs, regardless of what you think someone else's dog wants.

What I don't appreciate is owners with rods up their backsides because he goes over. They are the equivalent of cats bum face people on MN. There are many on this thread. You say that people who let their dogs act like dogs, within reason, are entitled..
Owners who don't want to be pestered by your dog don't have rods up their backsides.
It IS entitled and unreasonable for a dog owner to allow their dog to approach other dogs who are on leads unless the owner of the other dog says it's ok.

If I saw you and your dog and both our dogs were off lead, then they can play.
If I was walking my dogs on lead and you allowed your dog to run up to mine then I'd consider it unreasonable, and no amount of "but I think your dog wants to play with mine" will cut it.

Most human beings would not tolerate another human being getting in there face, touching them, jumping on them and shouting at them.

Baffles me why they think it's acceptable to think dogs should just be blaze and accepting of it.

My dog lost his sight last year due to cataracts (he’s since had surgery and now is back to his old nosey self) and I tried to keep his walks as normal as possible as he loves a good sniff around in the woods, he was so depressed and this was the only bit of ‘normal’ he had. I’d always take him out early and most times we wouldn’t see anyone else. He’d stay close to me, I think he realised that I was his eyes. I’d talk to him constantly and tap my leg so he knew where I was.
Add to that the fact that he’s sometimes a little nervous as he’s been bitten a number of times by dogs which have run over to him.

There is a woman who walks two GSDs, they were very lively large puppies at that time and were always off lead with virtually no recall, and I saw her coming towards us one morning so got my boy on his lead in the hope that she’d put her two on their leads but no, she let them run at my dog. I asked if she could get them away as he was blind and couldn’t see them and it was making him nervous and for that I got a mouthful of abuse and was told that dogs shouldn’t be walked where other dogs are off their leads if they need to be on their’s.

We still see her occasionally now, she just glares at me when we pass.

Then just yesterday we were followed by two annoying French Bulldogs with no recall whatsoever, they were running rings around us and ended up quite a distance from their owner. My dog was trying his best to ignore them, one almost tripped me at one point.

And I don't appreciate someone else deciding that my dogs don't fit their criteria to be on a lead and therefore are fair game for their dog to bound over and try and play.
One of mine is old and getting a bit vulnerable, as well as being small although she doesn't look or act it, she's the one who'd be intimidated by your dog bounding over, thanks to another owner like you who was too far away to do anything when their dog took a dislike to mine and attacked.
The other is on a lunge line because she learned to track and hunt naturally in a previous home, she's exceptionally obedient except when she scents or sees something and she can't be trusted not to come back until she's lost or caught whatever she's put up, that could take her into stock fields and onto roads or other areas dangerous for her or others. Her recall isn't solid. Your dog is likely to get snapped at by my older dog as he bounds over and tries to play because he's a stranger and she's worried he's going to hurt her, based on past experience and he's likely to get wrapped up in the lunge line with the other as she zig zags following scents and circling back to me when she reaches the end of the line.
My dogs aren't canine royalty

But neither me nor my dogs get a choice in it because you are the one that decides the criteria for if you choose to control your dog or not, and if you've decided the reason my dogs are on the lead (from just looking at us) isn't good enough then you just don't bother, and project your lack of care or control onto the other owner for having the nerve to control theirs.

All you have to do is respect that someone else has their dog on a lead and keep yours away - why is that so hard for you to do? Why would you insist on your dog interacting with others that don't want it for a variety of reasons? If I were alone, then I'd love to give a friendly dog a fuss, I do quite often.
You just have a complete lack of respect for anyone else and try and defend that by insulting other people.

Are all these replies real or just because you hate dogs? I walk my dog 2-3 times a day and have done for the past 3 years. I’ve taken my children out for walks for 9 years, many times a week when they were small. Never once has a dog randomly jumped up on us, not once. I just don’t see that it happens. Never. Ok if I stop to chat to someone and start making a fuss of the dog, then the dog may get excited and jump up, but literally not one time has it happened out of the blue. Where do you all live lol.

the dog is a kind of liminal/magical being, it's equivalent to or above humans, but yet does not have to abide by the standards of human behaviour.
Or to put it another way it's a mechanism by which the owner can express their contempt for other humans.

My reply is real. I also adore dogs. I’ve fostered and adopted rescues.

I haven’t had a dog jump on me either unless it is one I know well.

What I have had is owners not recalling their dogs and having them attack the half blind and now reactive and scared dog I walk.

Please be assured I absolutely do not hate dogs and I hate the amount of threads here which serve only to produce froth about them.

What I hate are irresponsible owners who think it is fine not to control their dogs, think it’s fine to buy a dog and spend 5 minutes in the park with a chuckit as exercise and be miles away when their dogs bite my charge and can’t or won’t call it back. And seem to be oblivious or deliberately blind to their dog emptying itself.

I’ve even have them say ‘oh but they’ll tire eachother out and they’ll sort out their pecking order while they play’. No. Your dog is snapping at my dog and I don’t want him nipped or bitten thank you.

The dog I walk wants to be left in peace and neither of us want to make sure your dog tires itself out because you can’t be arsed to make sure your dog is suitably exercised and happy for the day.

In short? I’ve no problem with dogs. Just some people.

I'm really not a scary person @Quirrelsotherface. But you may not know if a dog is nervous, elderly or doesn't want to play until it's too late.

I hope you don't find out the hard way.

You are seriously a crap dog owner if you think that it is OK for your dog to run up to a dog that is ON LEAD. It shouldn't be bounding over to any dog ON A LEAD. If the dog was up for playing it would be off lead.

I walk my dog on lead because he is reactive to other dogs. We rescued him a year ago and initially he just went nuts every time he saw another dog. After a long year of training he can now walk calmly past other dogs most of the time.
He gets time off lead in safe settings with dogs he has gradually got to know. He loves running with dogs he knows.

But he cannot cope with unknown dogs running up to him on a lead.
It really isn't rocket science. If you see a dog on a lead, call your dog to you and make him walk at heel until you are past the other dog.

Or train your dog so that he never approaches another dog unless you give him the cue to do so.

My previous dog was always walked off lead. When we saw a dog on lead I called him and he walked to heel until we were past them. If your dog can't do that and you are too lazy to do that then walk him on a lead.

Why does your need to be lazy trump every other dogs right to walk unharrassed? Funnily enough not all dogs want to socialise with strange dogs.

She's not aggressive. Or only to dogs that are free running and decide to approach her. Why should I muzzle HER, when it's the other dogs that are at fault? She's on the lead. She's under control. It would be your 'aaaah, he's being a dog, he's friendly, he should be allowed to run free' dog that would be hurt.

FFS. 🙄

My biggest bugbear! Control uour dogs, people!!! You are right, OP.

@FrangipaniBlue most people wouldn’t tolerate another person coming up and sniffing their arse either but hey, maybe that’s because dogs and humans are different…interesting thought.
I literally don’t recognise the world that most of you walk your dogs in. It sounds absolutely nuts. Half of you are willing to whack dogs with sticks, kick them… crazy. Most of you have been jumped up at, had dogs ‘snarling, clawing, growling’ some kind of dog zombie fucking apocalypse going on where you all live.
I walk my dog in an extremely popular dog walking park. Most dogs off lead, they either say hello, have a little sniff, have a play, maybe not. Some dogs on leads, everyone leaves them alone, sometimes you say hello to folks, if you can’t be arsed you don’t. No problem. Sometimes a dog or two will have an argument, maybe even a little tussle. The owners tell their dogs not to be stupid, call them away, put them on a lead, job done. All acting like adults.

some kind of dog zombie fucking apocalypse going on where you all live

😂

My dog is nervous of unknown dogs and selectively reactive... thanks to being chased as a puppy down our street by a huge Weimariner who jumped his gate as we walked to our house.She's now scared of anything her size or bigger.

She's fine with her 'friend' dogs and with her dog walker's pack. And she has lots of off lead time in the fields and bridle paths where we live. But if I see another dog she's instantly clipped on lead.
We work continually to improve her coping skills and she is now much better at ignoring other dogs

Yesterday we were walking round a field.. her off lead, and I saw someone enter the other side with two dogs. I clipped her on lead immediately. The other person watched me... and as we made our way towards the exit, allowed her two off lead and they dashed up and encircled my dog.. who coped amazingly for a minute or two before growling.

I called 'please can you recall them, mine is nervous' and got ' ah the little buggers never listen to me' !!!!!!

They WERE friendly (two little Staffies and very sweet) but my girl was panting with stress by the time we got away... which will put back her training AGAIN.

It's jsut so frustrating!! I am not restricting my dog.. she gets miles off off lead lovely walks with me, but with my full attention to HER welfare. She does not WANT to interact with strange dogs and I do not want to interact with their owners!