To dare to think that the Cult of Dog has gone too far?

[MariLlwyd]

There is now not a single public space in my home town that is dog-free - and that includes cafes, restaurants and even the library. Local beaches, once a quiet escape, have turned into asylums for the fur baby/pupper brigade to inflict their poorly trained animals on others with children getting chased, people jumped on and tripped over and all to the sound of hysterical barking and frequent dog fights.
80 year old woman knocked over by uncontrollable dog? 'You got in his way'.
Ask politely that you take your dog away from our lunch table? 'Go fuck yourself'.
Sit on the most remote bench you can find? Peri-menopausal wild eyed harridan lets loose 3 dogs from her 4x4 to jump all over you and laughs that it's 'their spot' and turns unhinged when you push them away.
Yes, this is a rant and yes I hate most dog owners.
This weird cult that values darling dogs over human beings is actually pretty worrying.
I shall await the inevitable and hilarious 'incoming' from the emotionally stunted Doggo Nutters.

Marshfield Farm Ice Cream's Scoops for dogs ice cream ingredients. I'll just leave this here.

I think life is better with dogs. 😃

I agree people should avoid places that don’t meet their requirements, that’s what most of us do, rather than whinge. Better still, set up your own cafes etc that don’t allow dogs and stop thinking you can tell cafe and shop owners that do allow them that they’re wrong.

Then write to your local council. Ask them to designate dogs-allowed and dogs-not-allowed sections on the beach, or example.

As a dog owner, I am perfectly accepting of the fact that not everyone likes dogs and dogs are not welcome at certain venues. Fair enough, I simply spend my money in places that do.

I’ve been in a couple of homeware shops recently with people with dogs - dogs rubbing up against the soft furnishings on sale . Owner completely oblivious. Really put me off buying anything on the high street - at least I know my direct online order hasn’t been covered in dog hair / dog sweat / mud/ pee or poo ( hopefully) Same in shops selling sweets or food on low shelves - no chance I’m going to buy

My daughter works in a garden centre cafe, and they used to allow dogs, but there were too many incidents of dogs weeing on expensive garden furniture, and once a display of jellycats, so they’ve banned them. The staff are very happy, but the customers are FURIOUS. My daughter is getting abuse every single day, one man even pulled back his arm as if to punch her. As though the young girl making the coffee is responsible for the big garden centre decisions

Yes I absolutely love my dogs more than my family, the dogs are pure and uncomplicated, my family are a pain in the ass!

I have two well behaved greyhounds, though, who are always on lead when out and about, and I wouldn't take them inside a cafe as their noses are at table height and if they lie down they'd take up half the floor space.

It's not the dogs, it's the owners.

Something weird has happened to me in the last couple of weeks. I went to visit a friend and her dog went mad for me . I was licked and she kept coming over for a smooth. She's a gorgeous dog and the same combination of breeds that my gran's dog was. Since then dogs keep coming over to me for a smooth or a belly rub.

After spending the day with my friend and her dog we've decided that we'll get a dog when we move into our new house and it's since we made that decision that this canine weirdness has happened.

Yes. If your kid are begging for an ice cream, dont buy them a dog one. But a human eating it will come to no harm.

I am not sure what point you are trying to make here if I am honest.
Dog ice cream is not causing famine in other countries, and UK dog owners treating their dogs to it are not causing UK kids to go without breakfast.

If you have any sort of luxury, or eat anything beyond gruel, then your point means nothing.

BTW it’s just as nutty over here now. I have 2 dogs not allowed on furniture. I have friends who bring dogs on a visit and they get upset if I won’t let their dog lie on the sofa/ window seat/ bed. I spent weeks last year trying to get rid of hair from my house and car from one particular friends dog it nearly ended a 20 year friendship. I don’t let my kids destroy the house why do people think their pets have free rein.

I was responding to your comment 'Where are you allowed to go with your dog then?'

Many people aren't taking their dogs for a walk in the woods, the park, the beach. They're going to these places and then just letting their dogs loose, not monitoring behaviour, dogs not under their owner's control.

It puts these places off limits to people who don't like, or are scared of dogs (often with good reason) or who just don't want a dog jumping at them, their child, their picnic, or to be tramping through dog shit which irresponsible owners have chosen not to pick up.

If dog owners took some responsibility, kept dogs on an appropriate length of lead where necessary and didn't expect everyone to be as enamoured of their dog as they are themselves, everyone would probably get on much better.
ETA responding to Jellynellycat at 13.55

If the customers are furious, they may just use another garden centre.

The cafe near us that didn’t allow dogs was always very quiet and has gone out of business now but the one that allow dogs is thriving.

I hope your daughter called the police as a man threatened her.

This happened to me and my dog a couple of weeks ago (no snarling and growling but playing).

I had changed my route 3 times to avoid this family, who just kept coming down the path, but had to finally cross near them to get to my house. My dog was totally under my control , ignoring them entirely, until their toddler bounced a football which landed about 3 ft in front of my dog. My dog doing what dogs do when someone throws a ball to them, jumped up and tried to grab the ball. The toddler screamed, my dog barked once and ran between my legs and sat down (her safe space) and the mother shouted at me for not having my dog under control.

My dog had a pretty good impulse control but she is still a dog who loves chasing a ball. What am I to do in that situation?

So the first (and prob most popular) place that comes to mind in Pembrokeshire is Tenby -a quick google says 2 out of 3 beaches don’t allow dogs in summer. In fact - quite a few beaches have got dog babs particularly in the summer

www.pembrokeshire.gov.uk/dog-control/summer-beach-bans

I have a dog. She is very well behaved, and I don't take her in spaces she is not welcome. I pick up her poo, and I don't let her approach people unless they are happy for her to.
I hate seeing badly behaved dogs too. I also hate having to dodge dog poo in the park.
Dog owners are not one huge mass of people who have low standards about dog behaviour.
So it is annoying to see threads like this tarring us all with the same brush.

I really wish that parks had areas for dogs and areas that were not for dogs (and not just the kids' play areas that are usually fenced off). It should really be the other way round - dogs not allowed off lead unless in a fenced off area.

My local garden centre has recently stopped allowing dogs in unless they're guide dogs so I assume they got fed up with having to clean up after them. It's always busy so doesn't seem to have affected their takings. I was also recently in a farm shop cafe which didn't allow dogs. It was huge, and about 2/3 full just before the main lunchtime period, so again doesn't seem to be affecting custom.

I have a dog but yes I agree. I don’t take him to pubs or restaurants. One we used to love now stinks of wet dog and the floor is covered in hair, it’s vile. I finally stopped going when I slipped in a puddle of a dog bowl that had been tipped over.

Gosh we had this near exact thread only last week. I doubt people’s opinions have changed since then.

We tried, the rescues we tried never even replied 🤷🏻‍♀️

It's also common sense. Sooner or later the dog won't be able to jump on the sofa, be it illness or age. Then the poor dog thinks it has done something wrong.

I live in a holiday area and we’re knee-deep in undisciplined dogs. Virtually nowhere bans them. I don’t want someone’s little Fido staring at my food while I eat it.

Sick of the local beach. Went for a family fish and chips there, kids all sat on the beach on a blanket, a dog off the lead bounded through it all and covered the kids meals with sand and sent half it flying. It's supposedly dog free but people rarely take notice (there are 3 other beaches in same stretch that AREN'T dog free, this is one 500m area). The nature reserve has so many signs saying keep your dogs on leads, but it's ignored. I watched two large dogs running through an area that was marked as off limits due to nesting birds.

Our local park is dogs on leads, and the play area and picnic area isn't fenced off due to this - again, rarely is any notice paid to this because their doggies need to able to run (again, another area 10 minutes walk away that is fine for dogs to be let off leads, but it doesn't have a cafe and isn't as pretty).

I love dogs and am very much a dog person. But please please, keep your dogs on leads in areas they should be, especially around kids eating.

There used to be dog bans on some beaches here, but they were rarely enforced and owners regularly ignored the signs.
Fast forward to now when apparently owners will be 'talked to' and 'educated' rather than fined. WTF.

I remember growing up and visiting my grandparents in Devon, many of the beaches were dog free during the summer. My grandparents had a dog, and despite living 5 minutes walk from the sea, we would drive considerable distances to get to beaches which did not have a ban, because you know, if having dogs on the beach is banned, then it's banned.

Last summer, we went quite often to some beaches near us on the Hampshire / Dorset coast, which were quite clearly marked as NO DOGS during the summer months, and they were heaving with dogs. Dogs on long leads tripping people up; dogs not on leads tearing around and jumping all over our picnic blanket, snarfing our picnic lunch, pissing on the kids' sandcastles; dogs jumping up at my kids and terrifying them.

The most galling thing is the approach taken by most of the owners of these dogs wasn't even to try the 'oh he's just saying hi' approach, it was just to avoid eye contact and walk on by as if nothing was going on. It feels like the ungodly offspring of the modern tendency to shut out the outside world (headphones and eye contact avoidance), and the idolisation of dogs as on a par with or better than human beings.

And I say this as someone who grew up with and loves dogs...

There are only a finite number of topics to discuss. There are topics which come up more frequently than irresponsible dog owners.

Only you controls which threads you read.

It’s a balance. I don’t like dogs off lead, or on long leads, coming up to my small children and I don’t trust complete strangers who assure me their dog is friendly/gentle/safe. But there are plenty of considerate owners whose dogs have good recall or who put them on lead as soon as they see children when we’re in the woods.

I think it’s like everything in life: we need to learn to exist as a society together. A lot of people are considerate, but you tend to notice those who are not especially when they endanger others.