I am the owner of a large senior dog. He is always on lead, and wears a harness. He is not an XL bully before anyone asks, and I am always in control of him. He used to love saying hello to other dogs on our walks, and now he's an anxious mess because people can't be bothered to train their dogs due to them being small. There is an assortment of small shouty dogs in my area, chihuahuas, jack russells, pugs, daschunds, bichon style dogs, miniature schnauzers, westies, cross breeds of them all. Most of them are walked on those bloody extendable leads. These small horrors will yell at us from across the road when we are minding our own business. Then they try to come over the road and the owner inevitably has to yank them back because the lead doesn't retract properly, and in the event that we can't avoid walking on the same side of the road, my poor dog gets a faceful of angry ranty little shit because their owners think an extendable lead means they don't need to teach a dog recall, heel, and other calming techniques. I'm tired of telling people to control their dogs.
Do they have to attack a child before you'll give a shit, honestly? Or maybe your dog has to run out into the middle of the road and get hit by a car first? If any of this doesn't apply to you and your small dog, please scroll on and thank you for being a responsible dog owner.
I've lost all patience. truly. There is a house at the bottom of my road with three small dogs, one of which is a really nasty little shit. When they are walked, it's always out in front of everyone else yelling at anything that goes by. There's another family across the road with a chihuahua, and they all yell at each other from across the road, it's so noisy and initially I thought someone was hurting one of them. When I went to go and check things out, they were honestly just screaming at one another. Nobody ever does anything, you just have to listen to it until they run out of steam.
You have ZERO control over a dog on an extendable lead. ZERO. Train your fucking dogs. It might be your little bundle of joy, but you're failing them hard when you don't train them.
I'd like to see a ban on extendable leads, but I realise it probably won't happen. AIBU for wanting a ban on them? You can buy long leads to give dogs some room to run about in large spaces while they burn off some energy, but you still have more control over those because YOU control how far a dog goes on it.
I have changed the times I walk my dog to avoid times when there are more people around. I take him to different areas etc, but this nonsense still drives me up the wall. AIBU? Sorry for all the swearing, I'm just so frustrated. We went out at 6am this morning and it was so lovely and quiet. I don't expect quiet perfection, just people controlling their dogs. Thank you for reading my wordy rant.