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.

Oh yes, and DP is extremely allergic to dogs, so he'd have to cross the road to avoid a whole load of them, or finish up having to change his clothes if any of them made contact with him.

I see the usual Anti Dog Frothers are out in force. There's no point expecting any reasonable discussion as a dog owner is always in the wrong.

I'm not entirely sure how you equate "people adopting badly-behaved dogs" with them regarding "dogs as more important than humans". What are they supposed to do, adopt a badly-behaved child instead?

I know there are some people who prefer dogs to humans, which is their prerogative, if a little skewed IMO. I love my (badly-behaved - in one specific aspect - rescue) dog but if it were a life-or-death situation and I could only save him or a stranger's child, then much as I love him I'm afraid the child wins every time. You simply can't imply that everyone who donates to an animal charity or takes in a rescue dog would place dogs over humans.

Apart from anything else, many people are given less than full disclosure when taking on a rescue. We were told our dog was an ex-working gun dog who had been surrendered to the charity when he became too old to do a full day's work. That may be true - he's certainly a bit creaky - but it turned out he has fear-aggression, which we weren't told about, and is scared/reactive to certain other dogs. If you happened upon us during the 5% (and diminishing) of the time when he is barking and growling at another dog who has been allowed to get too close to him, usually by someone who has let their dog off-lead and is merrily shouting "it's alright, he's friendly!" then you'd class him as "badly-behaved rescue dog". The other 95% of the time, as he walks calmly to heel on his lead with his tail wagging, or drops instantly into a 'down-stay' so I can pick up his poo without worrying about him wandering off and bothering anyone, you would barely know he was there.

He has been hard work (not to mention expensive) to rehabilitate and will never be 100% trustworthy round all other dogs, but that apart he is a civilised member of canine society and safe around people, so I won't apologise for having taken on what turned out to be a "badly-behaved dog" from a rehoming charity.

Walking past, say, 15 dogs in the street over the course of the day can't be compared to needing to pass very closely to them all in a line right outside the school gate.

DD is terrified of dogs, and I wouldn't want something so traumatic for her to be associated with going to school.

From reading your post op it sounds like the dog contingent are rightly or wrongly upset about the no school ground rule.

To point out the error of the head teacher's ways the dog owners are making a point of bringing their dogs more frequently to school and possibly arranging themselves in the path strategically? They hope this will highlight how much better it would be for all concerned to open the school grounds again? A sort of protest.

Any truth at all in the above OP or am I completely off the mark?

Op here. I have slept and had time to think. I think the dog owners/walkers main issue is that the complaints never seem to stop. As soon as one complaint is dealt with, there is another. Additionally, there never seems to be a compromise. To the dog owners it seems like we are vilified, yet we are prepared to meet half way when the other parents are not, not even slightly.

I feel aggrieved that there is no other opinion that their own. There are far far more children who love seeing the dogs than the handful who don't .

Yes we did have a dog area with a strong fence to tie your dog up to that was far enough away from the school entrance gate to have bothered any person who was afraid of dogs. However, in my opinion, these few neurotic people who push for an outright ban have made the situation far worse.

The children who weren't bothered by the dogs in the dog area are now subjected to all the dogs quite close to the school gate on a narrow path. This is something no dog owner wants either.

I have spoken to the head yesterday and she is seeing the error in banning dogs totally from the school grounds. I think it will revert back to how it was a couple of weeks ago with the dog area.

However, I know this will cause no end of upset for those few that insisted upon a total ban as they didn't want their children even seeing the dogs, even though they were a good distance away from the school gate!

I have a dog and when my son goes to school he will walk with me - but yabu to think that you should just join a dog crowd on a narrow pavement making a puppy gauntlet for terriffied children.

Bless you OP - you are more concerned about your dog than the kids whose school it actually is, no matter how stressful it is for them. If you had to endure extreme stress each morning you would probably try and get signed off sick with stress.

This whole 'dog as baby' thing has got completely out of hand. As evidenced here.

Really Funky? It sounds in this case like there used to be a good solution, the dogs been in the grounds but well away from the gates and the kids. Why would people complain about that as long as any mess is cleaned up?

Aside from anything else the situation does not seem fair to the dogs. Teaching a dog that every morning it will see 15 other excitable dogs, with no other outlet than to pull on the lead/jump up, while loads of other exciting things are happening (children, noise, bicycles), and while the handler's attention is diverted to the school gates waiting for the child, is not a good idea. If this was an adult dog who could do a down stay with his back against the railings (to make sure no stray child crept up and startled the dog) and quietly wait I think it would be much more reasonable to put the dog in that situation. However, puppies need to be exposed to the world in a controlled and managed way. The handler needs to have her attention 100% on the puppy, rewarding good behaviour, correcting unwanted behaviour and this is not easily done in stressful situations.

I'm a dog owner and I was a child who was so phobic of dogs that for a while my parents didn't take me to the park because I'd cry till I'd vomit, so I see both sides. Getting a dog helped me overcome my phobia, although I still do sometimes get on edge when I see other dogs.

Children should be able to walk in and out of school without feeling scared or being accosted. The bottom line is that lots of dogs, especially puppies, are excitable and will jump and bark. As a pp said, you can't just cross the road, you have to go to this place!

I drive past a nice little village school where, several metres from front gate, lots of dogs are tied to the railings. Many bark as the traffic goes by and every day, I see at least 1 or 2 dogs attempting to leap at a small child. I've been anxious when a big dog jumped at me and I'm 5ft, can't imagine the fear of being half my size.

No the HT cannot ban what happens outside but neither should a child have to face a pack of dogs every day, twice a day, on their way to school.

Because it is intimidating to have a load of dogs all whining and barking. Dogs are not people and shouldn't be at or in school. Or at or in work.

People who have dogs have no idea how petrified some people can be. My OH saw his sister mauled and hospitalised as a child and is terrified of dogs and he is 50. And a sane rational person. For kids who are scared of dogs, the fear they must feel having to walk past or into a yard full of them must be equally terrifying.

But who cares as long as the dogs are ok.

In the meantime OP, there is another solution and it's in your and your fellow dog-owners' power - leave your dogs at home for the school run and walk them at another time.

I really hope the Head doesn't allow her to be bullied by a small minority who think their dogs' rights trump the rights of children to feel safe on the way to school.

Leave the dogs at home, it's the sensible and social thing to do.

*herself

In my Local Authority dogs are completely banned from school premises; I thought it was universal. There are so many issues here; Head encouraging children to walk; lack of space for parents to wait; clusters of fifteen-plus dogs; parents' intolerance of others; dog lovers versus dog haters.
In my local school the gates to the premises are locked to cars because the drive-through zone was abused by parents parking and causing gridlock; now it is needed for staff parking because the new dining hall, built to accommodate school meals, another issue(!) occupies the staff car park; the playgrounds are closed until five minutes before pick up time, again because of parental abuse; (in the cloakrooms, in the corridors, banging on windows, waving at children during lesson time).
Parents wait in the parking zone, on foot, and as it is school premises no animals are allowed. Parents generally prefer it because their children come out of the playgrounds into a gated, traffic-free zone before going on to the pavements. I presume the dog walkers must wait on the pavement outside. Of course,the parking outside the school is a whole different issue again, due to the refusal of the Local Authority to provide adequate parking, as requested by residents, when the school was built some years ago. Plenty of spare land on the school site, but saved to build houses on.

15 dogs in one place is a LOT to negotiate if you're not a fan. Most school gates at in/out times are quite chaotic anyway. Why would you add 15 dogs to the mix when there is a choice not to, especially as you know it'll distress some of the children?

Because some people are incredibly self centred, I guess, Pauline Dogs matter more to them than children.

Even if you are a dog lover, there's no reason to need to navigate 15 dogs while you're trying to usher your kids into school.

Goblin, that is the point here, the dog walkers are waiting on the footpath outside. Except they are being told that isn't acceptable either.

Walked to school again today, dropped off my child, carried on walking up the footpath. My dog was walking beside me sensibly, close to my ankle, doing nothing but walking. One of 'the complainers' made a great fuss of walking her children as close to the school hedge as possible away from my dog whilst tutting at me. I was not doing anything wrong. We were 50 yards from the school. Why am I wrong to be walking a calm docile dog?

It is this nutty intolerant attitude that makes me bloody minded about taking my dog and waiting on the footpath outside of school.

If they won't compromise, why should I?!

Hmm after the school run this morning where the sun had obviously encouraged the dog walkers out i can understand why schools sometimes request dogs are left at home TBH. With the crowds around schools they do make things harder - especially those on silly extending leads!

You show no sign of compromise, OP. Can't you see that, legal or not, your dog is causing a nuisance? Do you care that DCs are frightened? It isn't "neurotic" to want to keep dogs away from children. It's common sense.

You are being bloody-minded, as you admit, not a pleasant character trait. Why deliberately cause annoyance and distress?

We have a similar set up at our school. Small lane, drop kids at gate. Dogs are banned from the grounds, but I thought that was a universal thing.

I used to take my dog in the morning, school is on the way to the fields so I took dog, posted DD through the gates and continued on my way down the lane. It seemed silly to go to school, come home, get dog and walk back past school.

Unfortunately some parents didn't seem to be able to stop their kids jumping on my dog, pulling his ears and tail, screaming in his face, etc. He is calm and always under my control on a short lead and never batted an eyelid, but if he got really hurt or scared I couldn't guarantee what he would do, it was an accident waiting to happen so we go later