To be pissed off with useless dog owners??

[Sapphire387]

This week so far:

One dog on a beach knocked my stepdaughter over in order to grab a sausage roll out of her hand. Owner came up far, far too late, to be fair he tried to offer us money to replace the food. I did say it wasn't really about the money, the dog had knocked her over (she's nine).

One dog ran up to us in a field and pissed all over my mum's bag (it was on the floor; we had stopped walking briefly). Owner not paying attention so I called him over and told him what his dog had done and he said it wasn't his fault so I told him he should keep his bloody dog under control.

I'm not a dog owner. I neither particularly like or dislike dogs. But AIBU to think that people should train their dogs out of this sort of stuff, and if they can't, they keep them on a lead? It is NOT ok to just let your dog be a nuisance to other people.

I have had dogs snatch food from my kids multiple times. They clearly see small kids as fair game, probably due to that hierarchical thinking.

@rebbles1 I'm prepared to believe you that get jumped on 'all the time'. But please believe me when I say I have never been jumped on. And I'm frequently in the company or vicinity of dogs. And nor have my children.

My DH once got bitten by a small terrier when he was out on a run. He's a little wary of the little nippers now. But it doesn't stop him from enjoying the outdoors or the company of dogs generally.

No, it really isn't that simple. Dogs need off-lead exercise and enclosed fields are expensive and limited.

People need to train their dogs, recall especially.

One of my dogs today got no closer than about three feet from a child who clearly had a pathological fear of dogs and was squealing and waving her arms about and running away - we'd met the family walking around a bend on the path where we rarely encounter anyone at all and I hadn't realised there were DC there. The dog was running past, the child began to squeal, the dog barked, the child squealed more, I ushered the dog away, apologised, got both dogs in a sit next to me.

We had a respectful conversation. The parent clearly had no intention of doing anything about the child's fear of dogs, which struck me as self-defeating (not that I said so). My dogs remained off-lead and stationary until the family moved off down the path and once they'd gone about 5 yards I released my dogs to go in the other direction.

So yes, sometimes, shit happens, but neither dog so much as touched any of the other people (one was nowhere near them). That's the first incident like that I've had with my dogs (off lead 3x a day) in over 5 years.

But yep, there are lots of dog owners out there who either won't say sorry when they've cocked up or should have been more alert, or who have zero control.

Drives me nuts.

Have you seen the mess humans leave on beaches ?🙄 Thankfully there is beaches near me humans don't normally use in the summer.

Absolutely agree that dogs should be chipped and licensed and on a lead unless on the owners own property or in a designated privately owned space -there is a business opportunity. Should not be freely roaming around public spaces because there are simply now too many of them with irresponsible owners.
And as soon as people refer to their dogs as 'my boys' or 'my girls' you know exactly what kind of owner they are...

Yep, agree with you totally.

I don't feel safe taking my kids to the park anymore as it's overrun by dogs bounding everywhere.

I counted 18 as soon as I entered my local park the other day, this was just in the very beginning part of the park, not counting the rest around the corner and across the main part.
18. In a space probably 10 times the size of my back garden.

I made a point of counting as it really struck me just how many there are.

Might as well just rebrand it as a dog park now and be done with it.

It's fucking ridiculous.

No. I don't agree.

And I own dogs.

My dogs are fine running around the garden and taking long, leaded walks.

If you want to train hire somewhere.

If dogs aren't allowed off lead publically what would you need to train recall for?
If they're only off lead on private land so your training there.

Or use a long line.

Or if you haven't got a large amount of private land, a farm, why do you need a working breed of dog or a dog that requires a large amount of exercise?

Get a dog more suited to your environment

Your dog should have been on a lead. Then it wouldn't be nearly running into kids.

You're exactly the type of person that is the problem.

Round here it’s 1st May to 30 September, so less than half the year. It’s only a few of the beaches, which are obviously next to stretches of beach where dogs are allowed year-round, on leads, and anyway all the owners merrily ignore the rules and let the dogs crap on the stones so it’s extra hard to clear up, if they do, or see if they don’t.

But sure, easily avoided for five months at a limited number of beaches, except not.

By far the best beaches are ones where humans don't really like sunbathing , as someone who lives near several beaches . I would far rather see humans banned from beaches , the mess they leave behind for local beach users to clean up is 😦.

I've got 2 dogs but I wouldn't let them roam off their leads. I wish owners would just keep them on the lead. It's not hard to do. Some people are afraid of dogs and don't want them bounding up to them. At the beach I find it's usually seagulls that steal food from kids. I saw a seagull swoop down and steal a piece of a pasty out of a toddler's hand a couple of weeks ago. The mother had just given it to the toddler and she was in her pushchair.

I have been in the park and seen a dog run up to a picnics, grab something in their mouth and run off. The owner strolls up 3 minutes later.

My dog did not 'nearly run into kids'. Check what I wrote.

I should have been more alert, I owned up to it then and now, and as I said, it's been more than five years since anything similar happened.

My dogs have very good recall, and are not aggressive. I do not leave their shit lying around. If I see a bike or a jogger coming I call them in and sit them by me. If I see an on-lead dog I call them in and then check if the owner would like me to put them on a lead. If I see DC coming I do the same: today I didn't see the DC around the bend. They have been trained to ignore livestock (but are still on-lead in any field with sheep, unless I have the owner's express permission to be training them around stock).

I'm not the sort of dog owner you should be having a go at. But feel free to lump me in with the all the ones who have no recall and have never heard of poo bags.

Not unreasonable. I was attacked by a dog on lead walking down the street the other day. Took a chunk out of my leg despite walking opposite direction. I'd just left 4yo at nursery thankfully. Owner couldn't have cared less.

Dogs need to be kept on leads in public. It's that simple
And here we go, the same response EVERY single time a poster post about one dog incident.

99% of dogs could be perfectly well behaved but if one does something annoying, all 99 should be punished the same.

And then these posters wonder why dog owners become defensive!

I walk my very small dog in our local park every day. The main part of it is a huge area where people sit to have picnics, play, kids play park just on the edge, very popular with dogs which are allowed of lead....and all manage to share the space nicely without incidents. Maybe one in 1000 dogs might come a bit close to a group sitting on the grass, or a dog running a bit too eagerly toward a kid, but these are without a doubt exceptions.

To clarify what you've said- perhaps "one in a thousand dogs may run up to people."

Have you been to the opticians recently? Do you not watch nor read the news? I apologise if there is an intellectual issue at bay here with you.

Your poor child was incredibly unlucky. According to @vivainsomnia the likelihood of an incident such as dog causing disruption such as ripping food out of a child's hand is perhaps 'one in a thousand.'

Would you agree? I'm not sure I would.

Oh yes. It’s disgusting! Plus they leave their disposable barbecues burning on the beach for people to step on 🤬

Every family has to visit the beach at some point, usually between June and September and leave all their rubbish for dog owners to clean up. We are down the beach every evening through the summer clearing up after the disgusting pigs! Nobody cares that dogs are on the beach while their owners clean up the shit humans leave behind.

Dog owners use the beaches every day, without problem, whatever the weather, yet MNetters want to ban dogs from the beach 😂😂 It’s never going to happen

It's obviously bad behaviour for a dog to rip food from a child's hand. Worse still for the owner to make light.

Fir the parent the important thing is how to react. Hopefully in the myriad of cases cited here the parent calmly said to the child 'oh naught doggy.' And the story enters funny family folklore. While giving silent daggers to the owner. The worst thing a parent could do (even if they felt like it) would be to publicly rant and give the child figure fears. I'm sure that's how all the victims of food snatching g have reacted on here?

@PurpleParrots it's also dog owners who tend to pick up the plastic from winter beaches. We're not all bad are we?

@PurpleParrots I find it is mostly dog owners who care deeply about the state of our beaches , the day trippers not so much .
When I was a teen I endured a badly cut foot from a bottle left there by a day tripper 🙄

Don't walk it near people's things it can piss up?

YANBU. Just been tripped over by a couple of moronic women with their dogs on those extendable leads which were completely out of control, darting around from one side to the other of the footpath. I tried to step over one lead but at the same time the other dog came the other way and wrapped it's lead round my other leg. Stupid women just stood there and made no attempt to control their dogs. Those extendable leads should be banned.

Easy, as soon as you see them cock their leg, pull the lead and say no. Basically you need to keep a sharp eye on them if you are somewhere where you don't want them to wee.

Oh. I didn't realise that. It's just I haven't seen many dogs on the mass beach clear ups. Do the dog owners who tend to clean plastic from the beach carry bin bags?