Sick to death of dogs

[SwordToFlamethrower]

Went to the beach today with dh and dd1.

Got jumped on by a dog off its lead. Owner said "oh. Sorry"

Two dogs ran up to us and started growling and snapping at me and dd who was playing on the sand.

Another dog ran up to us, had no idea what it's intentions were!

All off lead, all owners using their baby voices "don't do that Fido darling!"

Dog shit bags everywhere despite their being loads of bins and even free dog bags!

Absolutely so fed up of entitled dog owners and their nasty little dogs.

I love dogs, I have a dog myself.

But I do think we have a problem with (a) badly behaved dogs off lead and (b) dogs in places where dogs didn’t used to be, like restaurants.

I was in a city centre branch of John Lewis about six months ago when I saw a dog cock its leg and urinate on a rug. I have no idea why the owner needed to take their dog into a city centre on a busy Saturday, less still into John Lewis, and why the owner allowed this.

I was staggered when the owner walked off, but not as staggered as when I reported it to staff at the tills and they pretty much shrugged. We tolerate this sort of thing, why?

@DancefloorAcrobatics are you being serious? I assume not, just sarcastic.

Unless you've never heard of the benefits of children playing outdoors?
In fact - now, this will blow your mind! - there are even nursery schools that are based entirely outside!
Apparently playing outdoors is GOOD for children!
Imagine that!

It was scary @Toomanylosthours . Luckily the dog was a fair distance from me.

I also have a dog and have had dogs all my life. I know loads of other dog owners and dog lovers. I’m in groups for the breed I have, plus training groups and have volunteered at rescues. I’ve had countless conversations about these issues and it genuinely seems to be people who dislike dogs that apparently experience all the problems. Things will happen, yes, but nowhere near the frequency or extremity that is made out on here.

I was on a train a few weeks back. Man got on with a pitbull- was a very placid dog and lay in the aisle ( blocked aisle and people getting on had to step over it so not ideal).
After a couple hours the man went to the buffet carriage with his dog. A few mins later the dog appeared on its own with lead trailing! The man then appeared staggering with blood pouring from his hand.
He said he’d been bitten by another dog. He then collapsed a few seats in front on us - my husband was afraid to help him up as he was worried the pitbull might think he was harming him and it bites him! The man got up and went through door to next carriage ( dog with lead still trailing followed) half an hour later he came back with arm bandaged up with a member of staff. Thankfully we arrived home soon after. Reactive dogs shouldn’t be on a train as it is getting more common for dogs to travel on trains

I never see these threads, maybe you can’t without actually looking for them because dog hating ones are always more popular and end up trending. They are also (at least) a weekly occurrence.

Plus, it’s MN. You can’t only have posters who agree with you commenting on threads. How often do you see posts where everyone has the same opinion?

I agree OP. Used to like dogs can’t stand them as over the years like you say due to many experiences with entitled dog owners! I always find people get a dog as a child replacement and so baby it!

I took a 3 hour train journey and on both the outwards and return journey there were dogs in my carriage. On one journey the owner decided to let her dog walk up and down the aisle unleashed which is against the train rules

Oh I would love this 🥹

I have a genuine question, but I feel that if I ask it, it’ll be seen as trolling. But hey ho, I’ll ask anyway:

• Incidents of dog bites and dog attacks have risen since Covid. There are loads of studies on it, particularly on fatalities and hospitalisations, with less focus on the smaller bites or bad behaviour, so one can reasonably assume that those are also on the rise
• if your dog bounds up to my four year old and starts sniffing/pawing at him, how am I supposed to know whether he’s a well-behaved dog or not?

I know I sound trolling, and I promise I’m not. I was scared of dogs as a child, never had one, always frightened by how close they got, I don’t like people in my space. But as I got older, I realised that I don’t really have a choice - I live in England, dogs are everywhere and I’ll just have to get over my fear. I’ve tried to be calm and cool when a dog comes up to me. When my little boy was born, I swore I wasn’t going to pass on my irrational fear to him.

But the stats are really clear and obvious, and I have a duty to protect my child. I genuinely do worry that he’ll be hurt. So how do I tell the difference between a dog that runs directly to my child and jumps up, but who is ‘friendly’ and one who will do my child harm?

For all those disbelieving that this happened to the OP, or saying, so comically 🙄, that clearly dogs are attracted to people who don’t like them, if I were to go out with my toddlers, I would barely bat an eyelid if another toddler came over and chatted to me. However, if I was out on a date with my DH and the same happened, it would be really noticeable, and it would bother me. Isn’t it more likely that dog lovers are desensitised to dogs running up to them, that they don’t really register it.

This is not a case of ‘OP should go to a beach which isn’t dog friendly if she doesn’t wants dogs jumping up at her’. Again, I would happily go to a child friendly pub without my DC, and whilst I would expect noise of children or them walking past me etc, I wouldn’t expect them to be crawling around under my table and chatting to me, and I would expect their parents not to allow them to do that. Not stop them once they have started, but to stop them before they do it. Same with dogs.

I don't see this as trolling. It's impossible in many instances. A dog can be unpredictable. I'm a dog lover. I have dogs and no children. 3 children we at my house for a brief visit the weekend, because I'm not trusting of one of my dogs, both were shut in another room. I stood by that door to prevent the children from entering the room.

I think the general issues in society are... lack of common sense, lack of ownership/ accountability of a problem and entitlement.

IT IS not a DOG BEACH - it is a beach where dogs are allowed to be - as a concession not a right that over-rules and prevents non-dogs being allowed there.

The problem is that people equate 'dog-friendly' with it is a 'dog beach' and get all entitled about their out of control dogs - The idea being that only people with dogs should be allowed there. ** Fine if the dogs are either on leads or under control

Sadly, it's not made up nonsense.

These experiences are frequent and are getting worse. Trying to explain them away as just dog haters is not going to make things better.

I'm not a dog hater, I love dogs but I had an experience of a very aggressive large reactive dog in a restaurant yesterday. It was sat under the table, saw another dog come in and went for the another dog, barking and snarling. It would have attacked if it wasn't on the lead. Small children were standing nearby and the owner didn't really do anything. He should have removed the dog from the situation. Was actually quite scary for kids.

We live near the sea and there are frequent incidents on the beach. Most are due to very poorly trained dogs who have no recall. Owner just stands shouting at them and has no clue what to do. Dog mess is a frequent issue.

I'm hoping Labour will be doing a parliamentary review on this issue. Tories don't seem to have really tackled it.

There's a quite odd sense of entitlement around dog ownership in the UK. A lot of people think that if they want a dog, they should be able to have one of their preferred breed, regardless of whether it's positive for the dog.

And the logical extension of having a dog in an area where they can't behave "naturally" is that it's unfair to them to always be on a lead outside the house (per the PP), or to be put in kennels rather than coming on holidays even if that holiday involves public transport, or to be left instead of coming on outings to busy places - regardless of whether the dog is temperamentally suited to those situations. And so the justification becomes that it's ok for the dog to act according to their temperament.

I love dogs. Always had them growing up. But I live in a semi with a small garden in a fairly dense urban/suburban area, so I don't have a dog. Because I don't think it would be a particularly nice life for a dog.

Dog owners are so selfish. Imagine any other group of animal owners declaring that a whole beach is off-limits. Where I live people take their horses down onto the sands to exercise. They don't demand that non-horsey people keep off the whole beach! They keep their own animal under control.

Why not use this thread, or start another on the Mumsnet board to write the wording for a petition. Many of us including responsible dog owners are not happy with how things are currently. Judging by the commentary here, many would sign it if well worded.

What I'm reading, Godzilla, is that two dogs were play-fighting and happy-snarling in a dog-friendly restaurant, which the small children shouldn't have been in in the first place because if a venue is dog friendly then parents shouldn't take their kids there.

There was no play fighting. It was attack mode. I've owned dogs for 20 years, been through multiple training courses with my dogs, I know attack mode when I see it.

No, it's not strange at all, since lockdown when every dogless fool bought a puppy because it was the in "thing" there are so many dogs with owners that don't have a clue how to train or look after a dog. Everywhere you go there are multiple irresponsible dog owners and their mutt's. I blame the humans not the dogs. Do i have a dog, yes i do, is he my fur baby, is he hell.

@Godzillaisjusthangry it was a joke - I wasn't gaslighting you

Oh sorry!! didn't pick up on that. 😂😂

Not had enough coffee this morning 😂

You're on the money though that some irresponsible dog owners would have that attitude!

@Godzillaisjusthangry To be fair, what I said is so similar to what some posters have seriously argued that I can see why you didn't!

Yeah, your sarcasm was just too good!

This is why I think we do need a parliamentary debate on this as attitudes have gone to far in what's acceptable and what isn't, people's judgement is skewed.

It's also not in the best interests of the dogs to put them into stressful situations and many owners don't know or can't read signs of stress in their animals. Dogs need to be protected from humans infantising them and not letting them be the wonderful natural creatures they are.

Exactly this over and over and over again. It is a beach FOR humans which dogs are permitted to be on. As part of that permission they need to obey dog laws as necessary. That includes the below:

Dogs must not be allowed to be ‘dangerously out of control’, which means injuring someone or making someone fear they may be injured. This applies to any breed or type of dog.

If your dog charges at people to "say hello" the latter applies and I would have absolutely no qualms in photographing you and your mutt and reporting to the local dog warden. In fact if your dog charges and snaps I would be booting it face / using my dog spray as a measure of self defense.

A well trained, well socialised dog doesn't approach people or other dogs. Train your dog, pick it's shit up and try having a modicum of consideration for the humans in the space designed FOR humans.