to stop DD going to this house because of the dog?

[gonaenodaethat]

My DD is 5 and in reception. She is very fond of another little girl who has been to play at our house several times.
When her daddy came to pick her up last time he said 'We'll arrange for you to come to ours soon' to DD.
However I know that they have one of those Staffordshire Bull Terrier type dogs and I'm just not happy to take the chance of DD being around it.
So, do I make an excuse when they ask and not let her go or should I broach the subject with the parents and ask them to keep her away from it?
Or am I just being precious and slightly ignorant?

sorry "with dog owners"

I know that's not realistic. But dogs in towns..... god give me patience with the piles of poo I have to face. It is just not acceptable!

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Of course not! I basically love dogs in my heart of heart but don't have a massive farm or any work for them to do and I don't want to deal with a life of picking up poop! So I don't have one.

I honestly do think we should examine what dogs are for in our society and our relationship with them. We should also think about the cost of dogs to the very many of us who don't have them or particularly want them around.

You are clearly a responsible dog owner - but honestly you are a tiny minority ime. My son was knocked over by an enormous black puppy on a recreation ground when he was 3 on xmas day. The demented owner came beaming up to us screaming "he's only an ickle puppy he's just excited!!!!" As if that made it ok that he was off the lead and out of control. That's not ok. You wouldn't knock a child over with a bike and justify it would you? People are not in control of these animals largely and the cost to all of us is too high in my opinion.

We have friends who've bought a laregeish Westie puppy and they bring it with them whenever they come, it jumps all over ds (who hates it) and dh (who hates it more) it chewed tons of stuff round our house, it's out of control. But it's our mates ickle baby and they just beam indulgently whatever shit the dog does. These are hugely intelligent people. But when it comes to their dog - we all have to pay for their emotional dependence on a stinky fur ball that's out of control.

So I honestly think we should look for emotional fulfilment in more realistic directions. I don't resent elderly people having tiny pooches as long as they
CLEAN
UP
THEIR
CRAP!!!!

Excuse rant but nothing will change my mind. Working dogs and lots of land = good. Most other dogs except for the exceptionally well trained and with owners that clean up every single crap I would allow to live!

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Chequers I totally salute you and you are not who I'm talking about! Please forgive my ranting. It's just so hard for me because I grew up with one of the best trained dogs I've ever seen. My parents started training her when she was tiny. She was so obedient it was extraordinary. And she cared for us and guarded us and was a proper working part of the family. She wasn't like a big mobile teddy sort of thing! She had a job. She slept on the front mat at the front door doing her job. Not in our beds ever.

We also lived in the states and there was so much room for our dog and she had a proper role.

I look at so many people around where I live and they are being dragged around by these alarming dogs and I just feel nervous around them because you can see the owner is not in charge and isn't the master basically.

My dh and ds were skateboarding in the park the other day and a big dog started chasing my dh who was on a run. It was biting at the wheels of the skateboard. And apparently this quite posh woman ran up and said "Oh it's the skateboard! He's excited by it!! He's so gentle wouldn't hurt a fly!!!" etc etc.
Now my dh nearly fell off because he was going quite fast. She clearly didn't have control because she should have said Heel when it started to go for dh's board. So if the dog is not obedient - why is it off the lead?!

Again - not addressed to you my esteemed Chequers! But these aren't all dumbkopfs are they? They just don't see their dogs rationally - I would argue!

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Again, sorry if I seemed to be attacking you, dog owners like you cause no one any harm and I only wish the ones we're talking about would follow your example!

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I don't agree with you that dogs need acres! No matter how large your land or garden is dogs don't usually excersize themselves anyway. I have about an acre but mine don't excersize themselves, they usually just lie in the sun!
there's nothing wrong with keep a dog(s) in a town garden as long as they are walked everyday preferably 2-3 times a day and are maybe taken to the beach or woods or somewhere different on the weekends or whatever.

I wouldn't let my dogs off-lead though unless we were at the beach or an enclosed field though since their re-call isn't reliable enough.

As for staffies being bred to hunt rodents, they were actually bred primarily for baiting sports I suppose ratting was an extra job for them to do, but seriously, who uses staffies for ratting now? would a staffie even bother? JRT's are the real ratting breed and other similar terriers.
Have you ever met a Staffie? If you spend time around Staffies, you'll be very hard pressed to find an aggressive one ;)

when I saw these pictures I actually thought of this thread.....any guesses as to what breed this dog is?
tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2q0nhio&s=3
i29.tinypic.com/250jkfq.jpg

every day*

every day*