Labradors, model yachts and off-leash dog parks

[MangoSeason]

This has taken place in Australia, COVID-thread police.

Met up with two other labrador owners and took our three labs to the park. The park is enormous with a very large pond in the middle. Half of the park is a fenced off-leash dog area with the pond forming part of one boundary. The other half of the park is an on-leash dog area. The pond is enormous so dogs swimming on the off-leash side never seem to swim over to the on-leash side.

The labradors were playing fetch in the pond from the off-leash side when a man launched his remote control model yacht from the bank of the pond from the on-leash side. He sailed his yacht right past our labradors in the water who were playing fetch. About 2 metres away from then. Two of the labradors ( not mine fortunately) grabbed the yacht and had a game of tug-of-war in which the yacht sails were torn and it got scratched and battered about.

The yacht owner was furious and wants my friends to pay for the replacement of his “bespoke sails” and general scratch and dent repairs.

YABU- Owners should have complete control of their dogs at all time, even in an off-leash area, and if you are not confident that your dog will leave an item in the water, even in the middle of a game of fetch in the water, you should not have them off leash

YANBU- Yacht man was a complete idiot and no one with half a brain would sail an expensive model yacht right past excited labradors playing fetch in the water.

I personally think yacht man was a complete fool but I would expect my friends are legally responsible for repairing the yacht as their dogs damaged it in a public place. They don’t think they are, so it will be interesting to see if yacht man takes it further.

IMO it's the equivalent of letting your RC car roll into the path of a bus. Entirely predictable.

He could have hurt the dogs. If you put anything into a specific off lead dog area then you dont get to complain it was damaged by dogs being off lead.

Of course the other lab owners should have control of their dog, especially in an off-lead section. Just because it’s an off-lead section, doesn’t mean it’s a free for all. Even if, in an off-lead section, owners don’t have control of their dogs then they shouldn’t be let off. We have a country park near us and very similar to this situation, one half is on lead and the other off-lead with a lake in between the two areas. Fishermen prefer to use the off-lead side, so if I can’t trust my dog not to go swimming near a fisherman, she stays on her lead. At some point when you’ve seen yatch man being a dick and sailing his boats towards the dogs, you should have called them out of the water and put them on their lead if they couldn’t be trusted. Yes, he’s a dick for thinking his use of the water is more important than yours but people are dicks.

However, I would question whether yatch man took advantage of three labs playing in the water to get some replacement ‘bespoke’ sails because even non-lab owners would realise the problem of sailing something so precious () into the path of 3 labradors.

I think it’s half dozen of one etc

Yacht man shouldn’t be putting his bespoke toy within tons of dogs.

However. A dog should be recalled because if that had been a small child for example. You need to have recall

Legally though I would assume the boat man would have to prove the dogs attacked it and the condition it was in beforehand if he brings the case. However that could easily be done with witnesses through the park that day.

I think he will have the upset hand legally

Does that apply to all "novel and eye catching" items? I imagine it would be a sliding scale, the more exciting the thing, the more the dog is already excited in play the more likely a dog would be to fail to obey is owner in time. As well as dog obedience is a sliding scale and if you are out with your dog you often know when your dog beds to be on the lead or not but not all scenarios can be anticipated. Just like a steady horse can be unexpectedly spooked if a pheasant flies out of the hedge. They are animals and not everything can be predicted.
You sound like a lovely responsible owner but would you take take all responsibility for a situation, even the law recognises split culpability and I think this is one of those. Add to the fact the man seems very entitled makes me lose sympathy for him.

Two wrongs don't make a right so I won't vote - but the model boat bloke was an idiot.

Not sure it could be easily done with witnesses, speaking as someone who has had to try to get witnesses to be involved it isn't a given just cos someone has seen something they want to testify to that, assuming you can track them down. Most people want to give it a wide berth.

It's a shame the dogs didn't sink the yacht completely then there would be no evidence!

Most people want to give it a wide berth.

Yeah, especially when people have been sailing too close to the wind. (Surely it's overdue for this thread changed tack towards nautical puns?)

Looked into this a little further....in Victoria at least, a dog is considered personal property - so this would actually be a civil property damages claim - your friends' property (the labs) has damaged yachtman's property (the yacht with its bespoke sails). As owners of the dogs, your friends are responsible for their dog's actions. I do agree however that your friends could argue that yachtman's actions contributed to the damage - your friends could reasonably offer to pay for half the cost of the repairs.

YANBU. The man was an idiot to put his yacht in a pond where dogs were playing, in a designated off leash area in a park. And the dogs weren't out of control. They were playing with each other, minding their own business when someone introduced an intriguing object into their space. If they sometimes play with toys in the water then they probably thought that it was for them. This situation was entirely of yacht man's making.

I know it's not helpful but I would love to have seen it!

@Lorieandrews

You can't really compare calling a dog away from a child and calling a dog away from a strange, exciting new object. My dog doesn't really like water so on this occasion would have ignored the yacht, but if it was a land toy, such as a robotic car, she would probably chase it, try to catch it to investigate it etc. Because she has never seen one before and she is playful and curious. She would come back to me but it would take a few attempts to get her attention back on me. However, when she sees children, she will come back to me after the first call without fail. Because she sees children quite often and while she does love children and knows how to behave around them, the novelty wore off a long time ago. Therefore she won't go charging up to them and completely ignore me.

The point is, there is no such thing as 100% perfect recall. That is no reason not to let them off the lead if you are in a safe environment.

At some point when you’ve seen yatch man being a dick and sailing his boats towards the dogs, you should have called them out of the water and put them on their lead if they couldn’t be trusted

Good point. Because DPup's recall isn't good, I'm always keeping an eye out for potential trouble before it happens. If I see kids with a lovely tempting ball, for instance, she goes on her leash before she gets close enough that her excitement overrides recall.

I don't always get it right of course - but we're working on it.

Honestly? The man was an idiot. Do not give him any money.

If the pond was big enough for him to sail his yacht somewhere not near the dogs, he should have done that. Common sense should have prevailed.

If the pond was big enough for him to sail his yacht somewhere not near the dogs, he should have done that.

I wonder if he was actually fully in control of his yacht?

If someone took a remote control car and drove it up to a group of dogs playing in an off-lead dog park, whose fault would it be if the dogs played with it?

No-one sensible would sail / throw / drive a toy close to playing dogs they don't know. Especially not an expensive one.

Yes, the dogs should not have grabbed it and you should have called them back when you saw the boat approaching, but at the end of the day they were apparently playing peacefully until the man intruded.

I'd be wary that he was looking for a payout for some reason - a bit like burning the house down to claim the insurance!

@IntheNightWeWillWish

I'm not disagreeing re recalling the dogs and putting them on leads, but it is annoying. There are plenty of designated dog areas near me where you can let dogs off but they are gradually being taken over my dog haters who come and have picnics etc and I now have to keep mine on the lead most of the time. It's not like these people don't have dog free zones to go and do these activities in. And they try to call dog owners the selfish ones.

How close did the boat get to the dogs?
It sounds like either he was deliberately teasing the dogs either because he’s an idiot, or as a pp mentioned he needed new sails etc.

I wouldn’t pay, and I’m not a dog owner. But it does rest on how close to the dogs he drove it.

I thought the whole point of an off-leash park is that dogs run around and play with less human intervention. Very few would be able to use them if the dogs had to behave absolutely perfectly to gain admittance.

If the dogs had hurt a person or another dog, the owners would be responsible / negligent, but since it's only property damage to something he purposely put in the dogs' vicinity, I think it's his own fault more than anyone else's.

@Fieldofyellowflowers and I said the yatch man is a dick for thinking his wants outweigh someone else’s. The point still stands that you should recall your dogs away from potential problems. Ideally before the dog notices the problem and their instincts take over. As a PP said, you can’t always get it right and I say this as someone whose lab puppy chased two women the other week. You should at least try.

It’s not even about non-dog people encroaching on dog people’s space. It’s about controlling your dog wherever you are. There could be a dog in the off-lead section working and you should be able to respect that they are in that space, before you were, and recall your dog away from them. We’ve been working our dog in an area of grass of the main path in an off-lead area and people think that because they are in an off-lead area it’s fine that their dog runs up to ours. It’s not. If the lake had blue-green algae, which is poisonous to dogs, and my dog can’t be trusted to not go swimming then she will be on lead, regardless what the area is designated. Even walking in an off-lead area with my two dogs off-lead, I don’t want someone else’s dogs running over to me, distracting my dogs, getting under my feet and trying to trip me up.

@InTheNightWeWillWish did say that I agreed with your point. I do know that just because an area is a designated off lead area it doesn't mean you shouldn't be ready to recall your dog with a split second's notice. I live in the lake district so I do NOT need a lecture on blue algae or respecting working dogs. What does piss me off is when people come to a dog parks and complain about all the dogs running around off lead. Or when I can't let my two year old BT off for her usual run around because people are having barbeques in a dog walking area and then leaving all their shit behind, so I can't even let her off once they have pissed off home. These BBQs are happening in areas where they are not allowed too.

Tricky, but I’d say you were there first (dogs in water) so he’s stupid. One of my dogs loved remote control cars, we didn’t know until he chased his first one! He would also swim in front of canal boats to get ducks etc. Fortunately his recall was solid.

It’s highly likely that my labs would’ve chased the boat, but I’m 90% sure they’d have let go if I’d have told them to leave. While the boat man is an idiot sailing his boat so close, but I’d also feel guilty. I’d probably offer half as a gesture.