Dog ban outside school

[stivesholiday]

Recently our primary school has closed its gates to cars as our new head teacher wants to encourage as many of us to walk to school as possible.

Additionally, the new head teacher has changed the drop off and pick up rules, so that parents don't need to wait in the playground, they can do a quick wave goodbye and kiss in the morning. At the end of the day, as long as the teacher sees the parent waiting, the child can walk out of school.

Concurrently, there are a lot of people since the New Year that have gotten dogs. These factors combined mean that many more dogs are being walked to school as dog owning parents realise that if they walk the 20 mins to school and back twice a day, that it a fair chunk of their dog walking done; quite handy.

There are now around 15 dogs that are in the school area before and after school. They are not allowed in the playground, but the parents don't need to go in there anyway. So there are lots of dog owning parents waiting on the footpath behind the metal fence outside of school.

Some parents have complained that there are too many dogs at the school gate area and it is frightening for their children who are scared of dogs. These are not aggressive dogs, but many are puppies so are bouncy and they all want to play with each other.

I can see the perspective of the parents with small children that feel scared. They have put a petition together to ask the head to ban dogs from outside the school.

Am I being unreasonable to think that as long as the dogs are not in the school grounds, are not acting aggressively, are on a lead/under control, there is nothing that these parents can do, no matter what the petition?

I put my hands up to owning an 8 month old puppy. One mother asked me via Facebook to not walk my dog to and from school and I said no because I'm doing nothing wrong. I likened it to not wanting a strangers car parked outside your house but you can do nothing about it if they have paid their road tax.

I've been thinking about this thread and particularly your comment, Stivesholiday, from the first page:
I could fully understand if any of the dogs were aggressive but they aren't at all. They are all human and dog friendly. It must be a nightmare for parents with children with such a massive fear of dogs, but dog owners and their dogs have a right to be on the footpath as much as anyone else.

How do you know the dogs are all people friendly? I've had enough experience with many different kinds of animals to come to the conclusion that they're just like us - some wonderful, many okay, some not very nice and some absolutely horrible. This is the animal's innate personality I'm talking about. In that pack of 15 randomly obtained dogs (which, as mentioned by the PP who would go to specific events that did have that number of dogs, is not a normal amount of dogs to have to walk past), there will undoubtedly be a couple of less-than-perfect dogs who won't be as lovely as you describe them to be.

I was also thinking about that video that was all over the news the other day: the one showing the cat chasing off that viscious dog that bit the child. The dog was walking past but doubled back around a car towards the child. It wasn't even tense, as you'd expect a dog that going to attack to be, and made as if to sniff the boy's leg before biting. I'd class that as a horrible dog. How do you know that one of those 15 dogs won't act like that?

There is no option for those children than to run the gauntlet of all those dogs. Far from possibly helping children who may be nervous around dogs to get over their fears (and it ain't your decision to force that "therapy", it's the child's and their parents/guardians), it's much more likely that children who were unconcerned about dogs become fearful.

You will also irritate many people by exercising your "right" to be inconsiderate instead of thinking "Ooh, I'm causing or contributing to an unneccessary obstruction here. I'll stand further away from the school, away from other dog-walkers/leave my dog at home rather than make a bit of a nuisance of myself."

With so many puppies, even if they don't bite, there will be some of the bouncy little blighters who will jump up at people, leaving dirty marks on their clothes or maybe scratching them - people walking past have no room to avoid the animal. Also, these excitable and bouncy puppies will have accidents that, even if they are cleaned up within seconds, create a further obstacle for people who may walk through their poop because they can't see it due to the crowded pavement. Or they could walk in the road I suppose .

Ignore your rights and think of your responsibilities to people around you.

^woudl help if I could spell. Viscous dogs? Some of them might be quite bright .

Upintheairy slightly off topic but the dog on the video was exceptionally tense almost from the start on the other side of the car, look again at the tension in the body and how he is holding his tail. Also, that kind of extremely aggressive, entirely unprovoked and with very few warning signs to tell you off before a bite is exceptionally rare. That was one vicious but luckily exceptinally rare type of dog. Just mentioning all this as it is important for people to be able to correctly read dogs and often people miss the warning signs, that was about as tense a dog could be really.

Uptheairymountain- an excellent post.

Booboostoo- Yes it's important for people to be able to read dogs, but that does not excuse the dog's attack. It also wasn't on a lead.

I think the dog in that video was exhibiting predatory drift. Its behaviour is so unusual that is the only motive I can think of that explains it. I think it was actually focused on the cat originally and was so keyed up in "stalk-the-cat" mode that I think something must have happened as it passed the boy - maybe the bike wheel squeaked or something similar - which triggered the dog to see everything as prey, hence the sudden turn and attack on the boy's leg. Predatory drift is very rare and if it's going to happen at all, usually happens when dogs (especially dogs of different sizes) are playing together - the play "drifts" over the line and a dog's predatory instinct kicks in. If you imagine one of those cartoons where a character is starving and all of a sudden all his friends' heads are replaced with delicious items of food and he starts drooling, that's a (very) rough approximation to what happens to a dog during predatory drift.

MissBattleaxe when did I ever excuse the dog's behaviour?!!! That dog needs to be put to sleep immediately, it is extremely dangerous. However there is still a difference between understanding a dog and excusing its behaviour. Not understanding dogs is problematic because then you are more likely to get bitten. Understanding that this dog has serious aggression problems doesn't excuse it, but non understanding it in the first place may place more people in danger. I think the dog was guarding its territory, if you notice the way it was pacing along the line of the concrete initially; it then heard/saw the movement of the child on the tricycle and considered it a threat to its territory; it moved to the side of the car to assess the threat, paused and then decided to defend its territory. All understandable for a very territorial dog and still completely inexcusable. Putting such a dog on a lead or muzzling it would not be sufficient to ensure safety, this dog needs to be euthanised as it is a danger to humans. Note also that it is only 8 months old, very young and hasn't even reached sexual maturity which tends to exaccerbate problems.

All I did in my post is point out that the dog's body language was very tense and easy to read as leading to an attack.

Just to confirm. Dogs are always on leads at school, whether we were in the dog area or on the footpath. When I was walking my dog, she was on the lead. The school is next to a busy road, so all dog owners keep their dogs on leads in that area.

I am not sure there is any point commenting further on this thread. You see yourselves as right. Not able to understand what the issue for a child would be and your dogs trump the kids going to school and are clearly going to carry on doing what you are doing...no point posting really was there?

I'm confused. Surely this is a happy ending for the people who have a fear or don't like dogs? Now they don't have to walk near them. Problem solved, everybody wins.

I find the responses of some dog owners/lovers on this thread very, very interesting.

There honestly seems to be a complete refusal to accept responsibility for their dogs. We should all love dogs jumping up at us (when I picked up my kids from school it was often in my work clothes). It is ok for kids to have to walk past 15 random dogs on their way out of school. Kids who are scared should have to suck it up. The fact they may have been bitten, may have MH problems, or invisible disabilities that make dogs difficult or anything-well, just suck it up.

Stop putting up straw men. Most people quite like dogs, IMO. What I, and I think many posters here, dislike, is not dogs. Its the arrogant, entitled behaviour of some dog owners, who see even a simple compromise as an attack. And who, in some cases, also seem worryingly unaware of basic dog psychology.

Oh, my last post wasn't at the OP. It seems like the issue at the school has been resolved.

All I'd say is, don't take it as a character flaw that not everyone wants to be around your dog. There's plenty of reasons why people avoid dogs. They may not understand them, they may have fears rooted in something more complex than a simple aversion (that possibly can be overcome with exposure), they may actually-as in my dog loving mum's case-have serious, life threatening allergies which means that she can't really even stroke or pet most dogs.

As a dog owner I agree dogs do not trump children, and dog owners have got seriously arrogant and out of control....but then you know what they say about the Uk we love our dogs more than our people...

I can understand kids being scared of dogs. My parents were just not 'dog people' and I never had one growing up and was very wary of the neighbour's Alsations.

Now I have dh, who grew up with dogs, and we have a massive, fluffy gsd who just wants to be loved and is wonderful with our dcs. However, I can understand how scary she probably seems to many.

I don't often walk her during the school run because a. Dh usually takes her to work and runs her around the fields on a long walk off lead every morning, b. She won't be tied up anywhere and c. She's a sod on the lead whenever I have dc1 running along ahead of us.

When she was doing the puppy socialising bit, I did lots of school runs, but she was quite scared of the bloody tribe of cavvy spanners, JRTs and 'toy' breeds that used to strain at the leash and bark aggressively at her outside the school gates. In fact, they bark at pretty much everything. Is so much resort for me to go home, have a cuppa and then do a proper walk afterwards, without having to manage dc1 and the various other kids who join us on the way as well!

Also, even if our wussy wolf were ok with being tied up (rather than entangling herself and being distressed at being left), I'd worry about her being prodded and poked by other people's children and the possible consequences of that. I may be teaching my kids not too approach other dogs without asking first, but can't guarantee everyone else does. I'd also worry someone would try and steal her.

I just think, outside a school the needs of kids trump the needs of dogs.

simples.

and in a dog walking park, the needs of dogs trumps the needs of kids.

simples again

(by dog walking park I do mean a designated dog walking area which is specifically cordoned off for exercise of dogs and which you really wouldn't be in without a dog. I don't mean the whole bloody park)