dogs

Been watching BBC news about young lambs,very disturbing, please if your any where or in the vicinity of live stock please keep your dog on a lead.

Nope there isn’t here. Local councils were given the opportunity to introduce a bylaw. The town next door said max of 6. Our town didn’t impose a max. Consequently, three of the regular vans have ‘dog walking services town x’ on their advertising. They can bring 7mir 8 dogs here, worse, sometimes two friends arrive so 14-16 dogs running loose with 2 handlers.
I’ve spoken to our councillor - too,Kate to change anything, the dog warden, nothing to do with me mate - I wrote to the mp today much good may that do me.
I don’t enjoy whinging but - if I’m irritated, you can imagine the parents/grandparents/childminders who enjoy our lovely park feel

I thought there was now a legal limit on the number of dogs a dog walker could walk at any one time?

Our local park had three vans each with 6 or 8 dogs . The ‘professional dog walkers’ open the doors and let their dogs out, no leads and no poo bags in use.
I’d gone early to avoid them.
I met a friend who had 8 dogs around her 7 month old on lead pup. The Walker managed to get 5 on lead and eventually, the others followed him.
This is a lovely l.a. Park, football pitches, a brook running through, excellent children’s play area.
Being ruined by these people, no doubt charging over £10 an hour to ‘walk’ these dogs. Don’t their owners care ?!

Have just come in an hour ago from walking dogs off-lead. I'd never take them off-lead anywhere that could be described as busy, for their sake and the sake of others. I look for somewhere 'empty'. And if it's not empty at 8am, I go at 7am.

I have lived with/owned dogs all my life, and trained and handled them for show too.

It bothers me that dog owners nowadays seem very rarely to carry an emergency muzzle.

I have never had a dog I have been frightened to handle no matter the situation, and I have never been bitten. However I have had dogs that were injured, in pain or extremely distressed, and all dog owners need to know how to prevent a dog from reflexively biting in that situation. A dog that is injured needs to be handled safely for your sake and the dog’s too. You can’t help them if you are at high risk of being bitten, and they can’t help their base instincts when they are in pain and don’t understand why you are trying to haul them around.

I always have one in the car and one in my pocket by the poo bags. I never expect to have to use it on my big lassie for aggression, but if some reason I did need to demonstrate that she would not bite, I could. I can make her visibly safe to be around even nervous people. It doesn’t hurt her or bother her, and if I ever need to use it on her it will not be a new experience.

Dogs unmuzzled and off lead in a busy park is an invitation for trouble. It will probably not be the poor dog’s fault, but by god the dog will suffer the consequences. It’s essential to be a considerate and civilly-minded owner.

I'm really fed up with the 'off lead' brigade around here. They seem to own the place.

There are fields, woods and the river park for exercise off lead. Why oh why do we have to tolerate dogs flying around in the local park, next to a primary school, too?

The children's play area is fenced off, but getting to and from it involves going through the free run area.

The majority of these dogs are friendly enough - but not under control in any way. They can easily knock over a child. Owners seem to think it's fine that they don't have recall - or much training at all. (Isn't that having a dog dangerously out of control?)

My little dog is on her lead or a long lead when we're out. She trots along beside me anyway.

She gets quite enough running exercise in the garden, chasing birds (except her favourite pigeon friend).

I think this 'off lead' brigade are maybe just lazy - wanting to walk half a mile only and/or stand chatting while the dogs race around. How about taking them for a long trek instead?

We have a lay by opposite our house where people park when they walk to the beach. Today a woman was walking three dogs on the path to the beach. Two of them ran up behind me and nearly knocked me over. She called them back but then opened the boot of her car from a distance (didn’t know you could do that) and shouted to the dogs to get in the car. One of them did but the other one ran straight across the road. Thankfully there were no cars coming. I shouted to her that her dog was on the road (she hadn’t noticed) and then shouted that did she realise although it’s a 30mph limit people speed along that stretch at 60. I do love dogs. But I’m getting seriously sick of the people that own them. I’m sorry to be so boring about it but something seems to happen every day that infuriates me. There could have been a really nasty accident today.

I'm just sick of feeling like a freak because I live alone and don't want a dog. If I want exercise I'll go for a walk. If I want company I'll ring a friend. I'm surrounded by them but I won't give in, unless a get the biggest, roughest wolf I can find and earn some respect from my neighbours!

keepingquiet. Do you want to share my tin hat? I suspect we’ll need one. ?. Glad I’m not alone though.

Polarbear2

Too many of them around. Needs to be some restrictions. It’s not fair on those of us who don’t like them to be surrounded by them every time we go out. Everyone expects everyone else to think they’re lovely when we really don’t. Some respect for others needs to be applied.

Polarbear2 thankyou! I know dog owners who think I have a deficient personality because I don't have a dog. Sometimes I think there must be something wrong with me because I don't have one, especially when I'm out walking and everyone else as one!
Especially during lockdown when we were forced to go walking in the local parks with everyone and their dogs. At a local beauty spot there's even a cafe with an extensive doggy menu when all we could get was a cup of tea!
No one dare mention how bad dogs are for the planet either because they consume so much meat.

This morning in a town about 10 miles from me, a dog that was off the lead attacked 2 smaller dog that were on a lead held by a lady that is 8 months pregnant , she was pulled to the ground. It seems they are all ok thanks to a lady who came to her rescue. No doubt the owner of the attacking dog will come up with a sob story.

Too many of them around. Needs to be some restrictions. It’s not fair on those of us who don’t like them to be surrounded by them every time we go out. Everyone expects everyone else to think they’re lovely when we really don’t. Some respect for others needs to be applied.

Blondiescot I'm firmly of the opinion that there are no bad dogs, only bad owners, despite what some on here have said.
You seem to think a dog's brain is 100% controlled by the owner, like a robot. A disturbed human with mental issues can suddenly lose control, turn vicious and lash out. Surely a dog has a functioning brain which is complex enough to have mental issues too, no matter who the owner is.

Apparently there are now 10.1 million dogs in the UK, twice as many than there were in 1971. This means 24% of the adult population now have a dog. This figure has gone up from 7.6 million ten years ago.
So we have a small country, high population, crowded cities and towns, and too many dogs and people crowded together means more incidents and bites all round, especially as people today seem incapable of doing anything responsibly.

I thinkn GrannyRose's advice re children and dogs was eminently sensible and in no way "victim blaming". Children need to be taught how to behave around all animals and how to treat them with respect. We have always had dogs - we lost our much loved 13-year-old Lab back in June and right from the start, our grandson, now three-and-a-half, was taught how to behave around him and to be gentle with him. We have just got a new Lab puppy and the same applies there. I'm firmly of the opinion that there are no bad dogs, only bad owners, despite what some on here have said. In fact, I prefer most dogs to most people. I never trust anyone who says they don't like animals. To me, that says all I need to know about the person.

I think there should be a proper code of conduct for all dog owners. Thinking back to our conversation with the Heeler owner his wife had been injured when their dog had been attacked a while back. The dog was badly injured, too. Add to that the fact that our dog had been attacked and was lucky not to be badly injured and it had left us traumatised. So that’s a small group of people in a situation where another injury could have happened.I do use extending leads sometimes but am very careful when I do. Gives our dog a bit more freedom on the beach and and I’m not keen on long lines.
We had a dog on an extending lead run into the road in front of our car a while back. Thankfully we were watching out for it and slowed right down. It’s owner didn’t even notice!

News headlines this morning, a 12 month old child taken to hospital with serious facial injuries after dog attack. 27 year old man arrested, dog removed by police.

What do we do MayBee70?
I’d ban those extendable leads but I’m not in a position to do that. So I avoid anyone using them. An extendable lead is a bit of a red flag for me -

Be careful if you are in the Newquay area of Cornwall
and maybe other grassy areas around the country.
Six dogs have been bitten by adders in the last few weeks.
The vet's bill for one of the dogs that was bitten was £1,700 pounds.

So today we walked down to the beach with our dog on lead. Saw a dog in the distance whose owner put him on a lead when he saw us. Thanked him for doing so and got chatting to him. His dog was a Lancashire Heeler, quite a rare breed now. He (the owner not the dog) said he liked whippets but didn’t always take to other dogs . As we were chatting (socially distanced) a family came towards us. Parents and two young girls, one of whom had a French Bulldog puppy on an extending lead. The man kept his Heeler on a tight lead which is good because the little girl was letting the puppy just run towards him. I did shout to the parents ‘please be careful’ but they completely ignored me. This is how dogs and children can get hurt. These people had no knowledge of different dog breeds and, on top of that had the puppy on an extending lead and we all know the dangers they can pose. A few minutes later we were giving our dog a treat for being good and another dog runs up to DH jumping all over him wanting a treat too. Nice dog admittedly but ended up with the owner having to get far closer to us to retrieve his dog than we’d like.

Yes. That’s what I thought. We only did at at one training class, which was the best one we attended. The worst one was one where all the dogs were put in a pen to play together at the end of the training session. My dog loved it so much it’s all she wanted to do. It did prove that she wasn’t nasty in any way but it made her obsessed with playing with other dogs and I wished we hadn’t gone to it. The other two classes we went to were great and I learned so much from them.

MayBee I could be wrong but my impression of the band who believe dogs need to “say hello” and sniff nose to nose are unlikely ever to have been involved in good dog training.
The exercise you mention 3 or 4 handlers and dogs setting up a casual chat is as you said, to train your dog to sit and wait, to ignore people and dogs.
Treating dogs like children/fur babies is causing all manner of problems

Part of our dogs training involved walking past another dog owner with their dog, saying hello and moving on. It was meant to show that your dog will sit patiently next to you if you meet someone. My dog, that has no recall whatsoever when off lead is wonderful at that particular exercise. She’ll wait patiently for ages while we chat with people (pre pandemic that is). I’m wondering if dog owners doing these classes think the whole point of it is for the sake of the dog and they’re meant to then stop and chat to everyone with a dog so the dogs can meet each other? You socialise your dog so it doesn’t turn into a reactive dog. But people think you socialise your dog because it’s vitally important for it to have friends? As far as I’m concerned we are our dogs ‘pack.

SueDonim I also am puzzled by how behaviour around dog ownership has changed over the years. I grew up with dogs from childhood till I left home and I loved them all and was heartbroken when they died.

But back then walking the dog was just that, put the lead on the dog and go for a walk. I’ve only become aware since my daughter and Sil got their first dog 2 years ago that it’s now common practice to stop next to oncoming strangers while the 2 dogs say hello by having a sniff at each other. During which the owners make idle chat about their dogs. I was walking my daughter’s dog yesterday and a woman stopped with her pooch for the mutual sniff. Her dog started to pull on the lead and she said “oh he’s really displaying typical teenage behaviour today, I’ll be glad when he’s out of this phase! ?