Entitled behaviour of some dog owners

[Jsonwbia]

I am on holiday in the UK. I accept that the area I am in is popular with dog owners and I accept the presence of dogs, but the sheer number of them in some spaces and the thoughtless behaviour of some dog owners is really starting to grate.
I'm in a cafe - restaurant place for lunch. Most other people in here have their dogs with them...fine. But some people have brought in clearly reactive dogs which are intermittently barking loudly at each other, whining, flying into a rage when other dogs go past their tables and growling. It makes me jump out of my skin when they loudly go off and set a baby off crying in shock. There is outside seating available and it's quite a nice day so why they can't sit outside I don't know.
Add to that, dogs sitting on the seats, being allowed to reach too far on their leads making them a trip hazard, and sniffing around my legs as they go past on leads with owners making no attempt to remedy any of this.
The staff are young and very polite and seem a bit ill equipped to deal with any of this.
I'm not out to spoil anyone's day so am keeping quiet but it is not relaxing. I feel like I'm in a minority these days though with not finding this enjoyable.

Yeah I had a Labrador as a child. She loved ponds/lakes. But chasing ducks and other birds and ducks/geese in ponds, no way. Even though her dog dad was a hunting dog.

Yes I think there is a lot of truth in this. Add that to the fact that dog ownership has exploded in numbers and it's all starting to feel a bit antisocial at times

Totally agree

I take my two whippets to cafes and to our local garden centre. I take a blanket for them to sit on and they are not reactive to other dogs. However I can understand why you are not keen on sharing a cafe with some dogs. There are some very irresponsible dog owners and they have untrained reactive dogs that are quite scary. Also in our local garden centre people allow their dogs to do their business and make no effort to clean it up or apologise to the staff. I love my dogs but they have to behave themselves when they are out and about and am responsible for their behaviour.

I agree and as I said earlier on this thread, I'm a dog owner but always go to places to eat that don't allow dogs. I remember going to a garden centre and thought they wouldn't allow dogs in the dining area but they did. I could hear a dog barking but couldn't see where it was. On leaving I passed the dog owner and she was feeding it food from her plate, which is why whenever it wanted more it barked. Stupid woman.

As I said above I'm old and grumpy now and I clearly remembrancer when I was a kid a friends mother rubbing their puppies nose in the carpet if it pee'd on it and hitting its nose with a rolled up piece of newspaper if it poo'd on it. I think people had very clear expectation about what they expected of their dog and thought this was the best way to manage it. They believed that dogs were pack animals that as human you were in charge of the pack and were dominant and therefore told the dog what to do and if it didn’t do as it was told you punished it. I dont think dogs were regarded as "furbabies" none were dressed up in ridiculous coats had their nails painted fed extortionately organic bloody dog food, Pedigree Chum was considered the height of luxury and spoiling your dog instead Macfisheries own brand and or as someone born on farm, scraps from last nights dinner, the milk from one of the cows who'd recently calved and a few dried dog biscuits. No one had pet insurance and dogs received basic care at the vets, I don't recall any suffering from multiple illnesses if they did they were quietly put down none were obese most lived into early teens and the words dog behaviourists would have met with blank expressionism.
Now we've gone the other way people on the doghouse section of MN say you should never say "no" to your dog, ignore the bad and only praise the good. A friends son got a dog behaviourists in for their 8/52 puppy so that they knew how to train in properly spending the best part of £3k. Its only allowed organic dog food and you have to only praise the good and ignore the bad it has poor recall barks all the time and jumps up at everyone it meets. It stole my friends jumpers and starting shredding it and they tried to swap it for something "more high value" but they couldn’t find anything it wanted more than the jumper! In the end my friends husband intervened grabbed it by its scruff and shouted drop it and it did but the son and partner left saying he'd traumatised the dog for life.

Somewhere there has to be a middle road between hitting a dog on the nose whit rolled up newspaper and allowing to basically do whatever it likes. We allow dogs to live in our homes and be part of family life but unlike cats most dog want to do the right thing and thus are trainable and lets face it very adaptable. There are obviously some traits which you may not be able to completely train out, my dogs are cattle herding watch dogs that is what they were bred for centuries to do, one in particular is suspicious of strangers and barks when strangers come to the house because that is in her genetic make up, she given 1/2 a chance would chase cattle but I dont give her 1/2 a chance. I do believe that if you kindly but firmly lay down boundaries and expectations, e.g. in cafe I expect you to sit quietly under the table, yes you can bark for 30 seconds at strangers at the door but that is enough, teach dogs words like "no" and "leave it" and stop treating them like humans in furry suits then you can take them into cafes and they'll sit quietly and not annoy others.
Someone once said our dogs are a reflection of us, happy family well behaved well adjusted children happy = well adjusted well behaved dog. Before I get endless replies "but my dog is rescue badly treated etc" I accept this doesnt always apply to rescue dogs.

Well you can choose not to believe it but it is definitely true in my local town.

"I never believe the dog owners who say dog-tolerant cafes are full and the non-dog ones are empty. It’s ludicrous to think that dog owners eat at cafes more than anyone else, or that non-dog owners prefer to have dogs around when they eat."
Think about it. Its what dog owners do. Meet friend, we both have dogs, go for a dog walk, have a coffee in a cafe. Weathers terrible here, usual rain and mist, sadly I suspect summer (all 2 days of it) is over, the only ones out and about this morning are dog walkers. I went in the cafe everyone in there had a dog.This applies even more so in winter; no tourists at all, shitty weather, I suspect dog walkers keep many cafes going round here in the winter.

I have 2 dogs but am utterly bemused by this new thing of taking the bloody things everywhere you go, particularly clothes shopping and eating establishments, why on earth would anyone want dog food over their clothes or in the food they are serving - it is bizarre! I can't imagine the dogs find it particularly relaxing as most dogs seem to be guarding their space or getting wound up by other dogs in an establishment.

One of mine wants to say hello to absolutely everyone and the other one wants to growl at everyone, they can't just sit quietly under the table so we just don't take them anywhere, because it is far too stressful - everyone is much happier when the dogs are left at home after a walk and we can enjoy our outing. Utterly ridiculous and I am in complete agreement with you OP.

It's the "gentle parenting" era of dog ownership. I used to be more tolerant until I had a tick deposited on my leg by a dog in a restaurant. Gross.

Enjoy your pets. And keep them to yourselves.

Agreed. Couple weeks ago a woman sitting outside at a local cafe had her dogs water bowl ON the table then proceeded to feed it “doggie ice cream” . The water went everywhere. The dog then licked half the table. It was rank. The waitress came over and took her order. It is revolting. 🤮 wtf is wrong with people

I have thought about it. The cafes round me are used by people without dogs. I do sometimes see the occasional dog tied up outside, but I don’t see them inside.

The dog owners in my area take their hounds for a walk and shamble back clutching bags of dog poo. I keep a beady eye on them as too many dog owners are prone to hanging their shit bags on trees or putting them in people’s bins.

I suppose one or two dog owners must go into cafes with plastic bags of dog poo about their person.

Well as you say, your dogs would not sit or lay quietly but many do. Our dog lays under the table and usually people do not even know he is there until we get up to leave.

He doesn't like being home alone and will often howl which is unfair on our neighbours. He likes being with us and we like having him with us so all are happy.

YANBU op its so annoying.
Train your dogs or keep them out of restaurants and cafes its not a difficult decision.

Some dog owners are just crap.
I was in gastro pub a few weeks ago with my mum and her greyhound. He is impeccably behaved. He was happy on his bed at our feet. There was a couple sat a few tables down who had a small yappy dog who would emit awful screechy barks every time it was on the floor. Every so often, one of them would lift the dog onto their lap and it would shut up. Then it would be put back on the floor and start yapping again.
They did leave in the end without eating. I think they must have acknowledged all the death stares they were getting.

There's a place near me that has a three woof rule and if you exceed three woofs then you're asked to sit outside and leads are required at all times. I think that's very fair.

Oh god, this has reminded me. We went out for a lovely pub lunch a couple of weeks ago. Two women there had a small Manchestet terrier type dog which they let stand on the table and eat from their plates. Completely unnecessary and revolting to let dogs stand on tables, bad enough letting them on chairs in public places.

Ahh the owner who hasn't trained their dog to be left on it's own for a few hours and also annoy everyone around them with a howling dog....also bloody irritating!

If you tell us whereabouts you are holidaying in the UK we can provide a list of dog free venues for you. There are literally millions of places where dogs are not allowed.

Don’t you have rubbish bins where you live?
Generally where I live not allowing dogs into cafes would be exceedingly unusual. Maybe a cafe in our local very small town would only allow dogs into their garden although I thinking about it I believe most allow them inside.
But away from the town in a very rural area which makes up most of the area where I live bushinesses have to encourage all the customers they can get. Last week we had a day of sunshine I was on a “popular” with locals and tourist alike beach, it’s near an easily accessed obvious circular walk that goes past a local dog friendly cafe. There were maybe 15 people at best on the beach (most of the beaches near me are completely empty). Probably 50% of those people have dogs. Take those out of the equation not enough to make a cafe business viable. In the winter it’s really only dog walkers out and about especially on a rainy Tuesday morning in January.
Cafes struggle to make a living here with a very low foot fall especially in the autumn and winter so have to throw open there doors to all including rowdy dogs!

It’s so irresponsible of people to not train their dogs properly. My SIL’s dogs aren’t trained and they drive me nuts with their constant barking and jumping up. SIL only ever took them to a cafe once and was asked to leave because the dogs were barking so much. Because she had already bought her coffee and sandwich, she moved to the outdoor seating, where one of the dogs pulled the table down, complete with coffee and sandwich. I leave her house feeling like I hate dogs, but I honestly don’t. My brother has a big soppy well behaved dog that I love. SIL has decided she won’t take her dogs to a cafe again, which I guess is a good thing. The fact she took them before though, would suggest that she’d like to, but she can’t be arsed training them.

It's not dogs that are the problem, it's the owners. I would never allow my dog to wander, jump, bark etc in a cafe, indoors or outdoors. I wouldn't allow mine to jump at anyone anywhere, or be off lead without being confident in recall. Many people have dogs that they haven't bothered to train and think that an ineffectual "no" will stop them despite them not training them

Most dog owners want to have well behaved dogs and put the effort in, unfortunately the useless owners are remembered because they allow their dogs to do unacceptable things!

we have a neighbour who got herself a staffie (lovely dog) and 3 cats

then they (as a family) got some small,yappy,snappy breed and barks and barks if it hears a mouse fart (so we are treated to it barking at least 10 hours a day)

i'm off work with a trapped nerve and have been using my garden more than i normally do and the silly cow has just tried to tell me (by yelling at me from her bedroom window) that i'm not allowed to use my own garden because she's sick of hearing her dog bark (training it is out of the question as it will get in the way of her lazy days doing nothing)

i cant stop laughing-i paid for my house and the land it comes on,i'll use my garden whenever i like

she's going to 'get the police on you'

ill look forward to it...

hight of entitlement-she gives dog owners a bad name

Don’t you have rubbish bins where you live?

Yes, we do. But the dog shit bins are often overflowing. God they stink. I must admit that I wouldn’t want to be the poor soul who has to empty them. Maybe the council can’t find anyone to do it. I realise that dog owners could put their shit bags in other bins. Which makes it all the more infuriating that they hang up their shitty ornaments on trees and fences.

Still, decorating the neighbourhood with crap filled bags is marginally better than the many dog owners who leave the products of their dogs’ bowels on the pavements and playing fields.

I've looked it up in my city - there is only one café that doesn't allow dogs. (assistance dogs fair enough).