Has useless parenting now spilled over into how people treat their dogs?

[Gumbo]

This morning I went for an early walk to the shop along a lovely path beside a river. The path is used by everyone (including cyclists) so it's normal to encounter a wide range of people on it - although because it was early hardly anyone was about.

I could see a woman with a dog (not on a lead) walking towards me. It was clear that the dog had been in the river, and since it had been raining it was also very muddy. As I got closer I heard the woman say to the dog, "gentle, 'Milo'", then as the dog started heading in my direction, she said it a couple more times. The dog completely ignored her and leapt onto me, cheerfully planting copious amounts of mud all over my clean top and trousers. I was telling the dog to get down, while also calling to the woman to get him off me as he was so muddy. She pointlessly stood there telling the sodding dog to be gentle...

I think I may have told the woman she was a fucking idiot.

I've seen this sort of ineffective parenting, where the kid continues to do what it wants knowing there will be no repercussions, so was wondering whether this is now the same lot of people who are also unable to control their dogs?

I think it's more than 1%. In my experience, it's at least 10%.
So, out of the 13 million dogs in the UK, we probably have well over a million badly behaved ones.

Like other posters have suggested, I too think it's high time that it became mandatory for all dogs to be kept on a short lead at all times when in public spaces.

We have a cockapoo (from a rescue so no breeding recorded but cockapoo type) and has been easier to train than any other dog we've had . We are farmers so are used to working dogs. We understand the need to use a lead when near livestock & on bridleways (as in highway code & countryside code).

We have never had an issue with a cockapoo on our land but we have had many problems with off lead dogs causing problems on bridleways & on footpaths running next to our livestock. It's the 'ive got a working gun dog' folk that cause the problems as they think that the rules don't apply to them and their dog has a special exemption from using a lead.

If all dog owners understood and obeyed the highway code & countryside code eg short leads on all bridleways there would not be any problems.

Yep, I agree!

I’m currently watching my daughter (6) at football practice. Granted, it’s a public field but there’s one dog that’s completely out of control. My daughter came over for a drink and the dog ran over, jumped at her and licked her bottle on the straw bit so now she can’t drink out of it. The owner comes over doing the usual “oh come here! Hahahaha he’s only friendly!”

My daughter hates dogs so didn’t give a fuck that it was “friendly”.

I had a dog go for me as I went to passed it and its owner - they were on the pavement, I was going out into the road long before I got to them to pass. The dog had already seen me because it had stopped to look at me several times but the owner just kept walking. She had it on a long slack line. I managed to stop before it got me but she told me that it was my fault because I was silent (still haven't found that stealth mode switch, apparently switches on and off on its own). When I told her she needed to pay attention to what's going on around her if she isn't going to keep her dog under control, she demanded to know why she should have to do that.

Ummm because you're walking the clearly reactive dog in a public place.

I love dogs, only don't have one after my last one was put to sleep because we just don't have the life style to enable it but when I had one I was always vigilant when walking him. Looking around, checking for people coming behind me etc. A dog shouldn't be a nuisance (or indeed dangerous) to anybody other than their owners.

I think "at least one dog" is a pertinent point. I think one of the shifts in dog ownership is owning (and walking) multiple dogs. By the time you get to 3+ dogs it becomes difficult to manage them effectively, especially if off lead. Even if on lead it reaches the point when the owner looks like they're trying to teach maypole dancing to an over-excited class

I don't worry about cockerpoos being ill-natured, but spaniel genes are high-energy. They're popular family pets around my area, but the gardens are small and they struggle to burn their energy effectively, especially in working families (often hybrid) where there's limited time for walks, and limited space to let off steam without disturbing others.

Having spent a lot of time out running/ walking and doing things with young children over the last 15 years, that's been a lot of dog encounters. The vast majority are fine. There's probably about 5-10% of dogs that affect my behaviour- generally having to assess their behaviour/ approach and try to weave a course or slow down around them (harder if multiples); that's very minor, but mentally over a long run it does get wearing and disrupts your rhythm.

There have been multiple physical "altercations". Both of my children were bowled over multiple times, and had dogs invading their space in prams/ buggies (DS1's tug of war with an Alsatian over a fish finger was rather memorable- he was sitting in a large pram too) plus the gatecrashed picnics. The legacy is one child who is cautious with unknown dogs, and one who's emerged from fear into strong dislike of all dogs.

Occasionally there would be a mortified owner rushing over full of appologies and getting their dog on lead ASAP (forgiven). Most often the owner's not in sight and is clueless about their dog's disruption. There have been some total ineffectual arseholes; the drip who told be off for scaring her dog for telling it sternly to "get down" when it jumped up for a 3rd time smearing mud on my coat, the dweeb who just about mumbled sorry while engrossed in his phone as his dog jumped up and scraped my hand with its teeth, the stupid cow who continued her phone call, flailing with one hand pathetically as her growling dog was jumping and scratching my thigh. Special bonus points to the twat who blamed us for taking an 8yo to the nature reserve "dog walking woods" when his dog winded him making him cry from jumping up and digging its paws into his abdomen.

The "it's OK he's friendly" are uncountable. "He's friendly" is code for "I'm a lazy inattentive owner who couldn't be arsed to train my fur baby"

It's not the majority, but there's few outings when you don't encounter a lazy, inattentive owner at some point, and they ruin the outdoors for everyone else including wildlife and other dogs/ owners.

I do thank attentive owners who have their dogs under good control.

I'd like to see those long extended leads banned. They're a menace to humans, cyclists and the dog. If your dog is on a short lead you're in with a chance of defending it from an unfriendly dog. If it's yards away it's vulnerable.

My dad used to say it’s not bad dogs that cause problems, it’s bad dog owners. I think he may have had a point

God I can remember the 1970’s when there were literally solo dogs all over the place - on the streets, in parks. Fido got sent out for a walk solo, the kids got sent the park solo.
And of course if a dog kicked off in said park the nearest adult would give it a heavy, swift kick. Dogs weren’t high in the pecking order then, even if many homes had beloved ones.
As kids, we all got bit in the street by other people’s dogs who were unaccompanied. Off for yet another tetanus injection.
They weren’t treated like babies, there wasn’t much in the way of gentleness, they just kind of mucked in with the family and roamed the streets at will.
And no I wasn’t brought up in some sort of feral hellhole. Unless you can call an actual decade one….

Wow, you've had more than your fair share of encounters with badly behaved dogs! The shame of it is, every single one of your examples are down to an absence of training. Dogs do what they are allowed to do.

Jumping up is an absolute no-no in my book. It's always been one of the first things I've taught my pups. It's completely unacceptable for a grown dog - more so a wet, muddy grown dog - to be jumping up at anyone and especially a stranger. Well done you for correcting the dog, I would have done the same. Unfortunately, some dog owners allow it when they have a small, cute puppy and strangers are willing to overlook it but then find 12 months later that jumping up has become a massive problem because (surprise surprise) the dog is now a fully grown, muscular, very powerful adult dog who is jumping up, dirtying strangers' clothes and bowling them over. It's no longer "cute" behaviour. If only they'd taught the dog not to do it when it was tiny.

As for jumping up at prams and snatching food from babies, words fail me. What the bloody hell?! In my book, this is getting into the realms of "dangerously out of control in a public place" which is an offence under the Dangerous Dogs Act. Again, it's down to a complete absence of training and allowing dog behaviour which is clearly highly unacceptable and potentially dangerous (small hands, sharp dog teeth.) If I was walking past with my dogs and witnessed that, I would have called the owner out on it.

Idiotic!

I take your point on multiple dogs. At one stage in my life, I had 3 Border Collies and one Black Labrador, of different ages. All four dogs were advanced obedience trained and two of the Collies were also agility trained. I invested a great deal of time, energy and money into my dogs so that they were an absolute pleasure to own and not a pick of bother. However, when it comes to owners who lack control over one dog, it's mind numbingly obvious that adding a second or third dog to the mix is not going to be a good idea. They'll simply end up with two or three dogs, all of which they lack control over.

As a rule of thumb, when you hear the words, "he's friendly" there's one of two likely outcomes. The first is he isn't friendly at all as evidenced by his hostile body language, barking and/or growling, usually at my dogs. The second is he is friendly but he's a lunatic: jumping up at humans, jumping on the back of other dogs and generally being an anti-social nightmare.

On either front, I put on my harshest tone of voice, make some sweeping arm movements and chase the dog back to his owner. Invariably, the owners don't like me telling their dog off but usually, as you say, they're a distance away or busy on their phones so I take the view that as they're unable or unwilling to control their dogs, I will do it for them.

I find it very sad that both of your children have had negative experiences of dogs which still effect them. Those situations should never have happened.

As you said at the beginning of your reply, it's only a minority of dogs which are allowed to behave badly, the vast majority aren't a problem at all. The trouble is the minority give ALL dogs a bad name which is the reason why I - and I suspect other owners of well behaved dogs - will call out bad dog behaviour when we see it!

Fragmentedbrain* you should be ashamed of yourself for kicking a dog! OK it shouldn't have jumped up on you, but what you did is animal cruelty. Some dogs are just excitable and can't help themselves and then training goes out the window. Why does everyone on this forum hate dogs?

My cookerpoo is a grade 4 Agility dog. She sailed through grades 2&3 .... (that's because she's trained!)
There are lots of cookerpoos doing Agility and they, by default have to be well trained. However, many of the pure breed Poodles we encounter are barky even in the ring. Not everything with a curly coat is a cookerpoo.

So take your hate for the curly coat somewhere else!

What would you suggest they did instead?

Just push the dog away, no need for violence against it.

So as @Fragmentedbrain said the dog repeatedly jumped up. Kicking it is wrong. We should all just stand there.

I love dogs but I think there’s far too many useless dog owners around who don’t think they have to put any work in to get a well balanced dog.
Dogs aren’t humans, you can’t reason with them, and not everyone loves them like you do 😂

Yes , if people parent badly there’s no reason to think they’ll successfully raise a dog .

Was the world a better place when more people treated both their kids and their dogs with violence?

There was no golden age of parenting or dog ownership.

It’s all part of the same thing, entitlement and lack of self awareness and thinking of others.
Society is so split and fragmented.
The worst outcome of the current situation is fact rescue centres are bursting at the seams and the fact that the supply and demand of the cockerpoo type breed has caused immense suffering and cruelty but people still buy them because they have to have what they want when they want it. Most of these type of owners never ever considered getting a dog before but now don’t want to ‘miss out’.
Then those of us who pick up the pieces with rescue animals get scorn poured on us because we genuinely understand the cruel landscape and dare to suggest that others consider it to.
I am in my 50’s and am glad I am not younger. I don’t like the way attitudes have changed.

Thank God!

What is needed is proper dog licensing which I suggest includes people who want a dog having to get training including what is expected of them in terms of how they control their dog, barking etc BEFORE they actually get one

Had a similar experience just this week, walking through a farmyard with a friend's spaniel on a lead. Two working labradors who live at the farm charged at the spaniel, hackles raised and teeth bared and we had to shout at the labs to stop them attacking him. There's a public right of way through the farmyard, so the farm dogs should have been under control, but the owner came out and screamed at us for kicking their dogs (we didn't!). She insisted that her dogs would never behave like that and that she had three witnesses to the non-existent kicking. Let's hope it's not a child next time 😬

Contact Police, Dog Warden & Highways

ALSO you can defend yourself against a dog in the same way you can a human so if they allege the dogs got kicked they wont get far with it

NB as its a farm Gun Licensing as well as they probably have shotguns and it might be a useful stick to beat them with

No all cockerppos have curly coats- we have in at school- therapy dog- and she looks almost pure spaniel.

My parents (owners of 2 large dogs) treat them like they’re babies, they have no control and are completely ruled by them. Every time I go round, my grown up children (grandchildren) and I, get ignored, while we all watch the dogs running round like lunatics with my parents, through the noisy chaos, saying ‘arrrr she just loves that toy’ ‘arrrr they’ll settle down in a minute’. I’m going round less frequently!

Dog owners are definitely getting worse. Once in a blue moon I'll see someone walking their dog using a proper lead, every dog where I live is invariably on an extending lead 15ft ahead of or behind the owner who is playing on their phone as they walk along. The dog probably doesn't even know it's with anyone. I very much doubt there's any affection in the dog-owner relationship either although I know the owner would probably say there was. I was even down the local beach not long ago leaning on the prom wall when something wet stuck itself in my hand - it was the face of a tiny off-lead pug puppy, the owners were walking away a good few minutes walk further down and hadn't noticed it wasn't with them. On their phones of course.

Not sure if that was about bad dog owners or phones lol. There is one good dog owner in our estate, an older man with a lab which is never on the lead, it's perfectly trained to heel and is willing and obedient like you wouldn't belive. I'm not really a dog person but this one is officially a Good Boy.