Leash Etiquette

[Sitdowncupoftea]

With the amount of new dog owners at the moment it's unbelievable how stupid some are. My dogs are never off leash due to the breed. I walk them on a leash and switch to a long line. If I see another dog they are brought to heel in the sit or down position depending if the other dog is under control. Only yesterday I was out for a walk and twice I had to shout at dog owners with no recall to control their dogs. My poor dog was sat behaving at my feet and had to endure a GSD running up with a full force jump on him. I could see it coming and shouted to the man get your dog under control. The man took no damn notice. In the end my dog had enough and bit his dog. I didn't apologise I had nothing to appologeise for. I just felt sorry for the GSD as the poor dogs owner is a complete imbecile. Dogs are on leash for a reason. I won't muzzle my dog unless he's in close proximity of humans however I'm pig sick of people with off leash dogs that think this behaviour is acceptable. For a you newbie dog owners if you see an onleash dog don't let yours run up and jump on it.

My 16 week old puppy is always on lead as I don't think her recall is good enough to be off.... I have taught her to sit every time we see another dog so she is calm and she gets to know we don't say hello to every dog we see, this is fine and I don't mind her saying hello to other dogs if the owners say it's ok.... BUT so many dogs are off lead and just run over and start sniffing or bowing and my pup is sitting there looking at me like can I play? I'm fed up of it and almost feel like I should just let mine off like everyone else does!

Aria20 I have a 19 week old and previously I always had her on a lead whenever a dog approached. She does get off lead at times but I call her back if I see a dog coming. The other day I saw a dog approaching who I thought looked friendly and I thought I will let her stay off lead and see what happens. I was interested to know how she would cope (I imagined they would have a quick sniff and move on) As we came to the dog I said to the owner that she is just a puppy and learning how to say hello. The two dogs then proceeded to chase each other round in circles playing - they absolutely loved it. But I wasn’t sure if I wanted to encourage her to play with random dogs so I called her to keep walking she did follow us but so did the dog we crossed the entire field with this other dog following and playing. The other owner did nothing to call her dog back even though we were clearly trying to wrap up the play time. She just looked on pleased that her dog was getting a good run and a play I think. I came away not all that sure what to think of the situation. Ours was a puppy and the lady had an adult dog so the onus should more be on her to call her dog back when it was getting out of hand? I am a new dog owner myself and just getting used to these things. I believe play with random dogs is to be discouraged? But lots of dog owners do encourage it. It’s very difficult to work out what to do.

My most recent bugbear is people who tell me it's my fault their dog has attacked mine "because he doesn't like dogs on lead"

It's not really my fault if your off lead dog has approached my onlead dog to start a barney is it???

Goodness chocolateandamaretto that’s appalling.

We had the "but he's just playing!" line this morning. AFTER I'd asked the person if their dog was OK (I could see it approaching, as the owners altered my by going, oh no, when it started belting towards my dog). While it wasn't aggressive, it was very rude, was massive, had zero recall and jumped all over my (terrified) dog.

OMG if I hear that line one more time ....

These clueless new owners (it was a huge GSD pup) were so lazy they hadn't even bothered to learn dog body language. One look at my terrified girl should have been enough to shame them but ... nope. He's just playing. Aaargghhhhh.

Thing is: training most dogs isn't all that hard, especially a GSD, especially having it from a pup. That person could have the loveliest dog, and the most stress-free, enjoyable walks. For the want of a little reading, You-Tubing or classes they make everyone's lives miserable.

And the thing is, their poor dog will get itself in a situation where the other dog gets so fed up with it "playing" with them that it turns and rips its face off. And then they'll end up with a traumatised or reactive dog, and that is so much harder to manage than one that's polite and has decent recall. Just so stupid and short-sighted.

I agree. I scaled a verge to keep my on lead dog away from 2 dogs that were bounding over to us. She didn’t attempt to recall them and accused me of spoiling her walk when I asked her to control them.

She was lucky my Ddog didn’t bite one.

I read the other day that if someone shouts “it’s ok he’s friendly” it’s basically code for “I have no control over him”