Really. What does get into people’s minds? Is it all one walnut-sized void inside the head? Or what?
We have a county leash law here. You have to keep your dog in a fenced yard or on a lead. If your dog is in your front yard and you have no fence around your front yard, then your dog has to be on a lead even if it’s on your property. Even if you’re out there with it.
How hard is this to understand? It’s not nuclear physics. Is it?
This morning I had Charlie out in front, on a lead, for a little light leash-training. It was his first serious venture out there, so he was mighty enthralled with all the smells and plants and shady spots. He’d gone up the low mound where the vast palo brea stands. Cats like to loaf in the underbrush of the vitex, the Mexican bird of paradise, and the sky flower, and every dog that passes pees or more under there. It is, a short, an olfactory paradise for a puppy.
So I’m standing there in the shade of the thorn tree holding the looped-up end of Charlie’s 20-foot training lead and what should I see come marching up the street on the east but a pit bull. An unaccompanied pit bull.
A few seconds later, a twenty- or thirty-something woman ambles up behind it with another dog, this one on a leash.
The pit bull spots the puppy and comes charging up. Charlie, terrified, tries to run away. As in “there goes the rabbit-rabbit-rabbit!” If I hadn’t had him in hand and been able to stop him from shooting off, the pit bull quite naturally would have gone after him.
I holler to the stupid woman, “Please call your dog! I have a puppy here that’s out of control!”
She calls her dog. It ignores her.
“CALL. YOUR. DOG! Please hurry up!”
She calls the dog again. After a couple more tries, it allows itself to be distracted and trots off with her.
What on earth is the matter with people?
I know, a leash law seems like a terrible socialist government intrusion on your God-given constitutionally guaranteed right to walk your pit bull down the street in peace. But doesn’t it ever occur to a moron like this that legislators, even the court fools we have in Arizona, do not pass laws just to hear their teeth chatter? That maybe, just maybe there could be a reason for a county going to the extreme of actually passing a law requiring dog owners to keep their animals fenced or leashed?
Does she really have to get her a$$ sued to understand the implications of letting a large, potentially dangerous dog stroll down the street, in a defensive position vis-à-vis its human, unleashed and only marginally under the control of voice commands?
Maybe there’s something wrong with me, that I have no patience with rampant, willful stupidity.
Let’s hope she doesn’t or hasn’t reproduced.
I have a dog that is most often fear aggressive to other dogs. I’m trying to train her out of this, but it’s a slow process. I do still take her for walks and it’s a real nightmare for me to encounter other dogs off leash. Just last Saturday we had an encounter with a smaller dog that was left in the front yard without a leash. There didn’t seem to be a person present, either. I got to use a trick I had recently read about on Patricia McConnell’s blog, The Other End of the Leash: throw a handful of treats to divert the off leash dog from charging at your dog. It worked like a charm and we were able to cross the street and get the heck out of there without any more fuss. Yeah, people need to stop doing this stupid stuff, but they will continue to do so. I’m glad I now have a Plan B for when I encounter idiots like this.
Second post I’ve seen on this on as many days. The other poster made a good point that even if your unleashed dog is completely cool, that doesn’t mean that the leashed dogs that it might approach are equally cool, in which case disastrous results could occur. Sad when it’s not clear who is more intelligent, the owner or the dog.
@ Linda and Money Beagle: Yes. What these scofflaws can’t seem to grasp is that the leash law is there for their protection as much as for their fellow citizens.
My German shepherd was dog-aggressive, too. It’s possible that there was an element of fear there, because a moron neighbor had a dog that jumped us three times when she was a pup and bit her twice. However, she did not appear to be fearful — a fear-aggressive dog takes on a characteristic posture. She just wanted to kill other dogs, and she had a strategy.
When some fool’s off-the-leash pooch would come up to her or some even greater idiot would insist on approaching us even after I said to stay back(!), she would wag cheerfully and elicit a friendly-looking dog grin. This would trick both the approaching dog and its moron human. She would sit or stand quietly until the dog got within about eight or ten inches of her, and then she would go STRAIGHT FOR THE JUGULAR! And she wasn’t playing.
Many German shepherds are dog-aggressive. That pretty clearly was the issue with the Ger-shep that shot across the street and halfway up the block to come after Cassie awhile back. Problem is, so many people get these dogs who don’t understand how to handle them that the potential for disaster is much higher than anyone outside the ER and the insurance industry understands.
As to whether a fistful of doggy treats would work to distract a truly determined animal…well, it’s worth a try. It might be that a playful dog approaching me and Anna could have been thrown off the track for a minute or two. But once Anna herself got going…not a chance! Such an animal is extremely focused when it goes into action. A few doggy treats will not break that focus.
The action of throwing something at an aggressive dog could in fact incite the animal to attack — the motion of your hand and body could be seen as aggression, especially if you’re nervous or frightened, which a dog can sense. If you try this, you probably ought to be prepared to kick as hard as you can while yelling “fire!” at the top of your lungs.
Screaming “fire,” BTW, is the most effective way to get people to come out of their homes or disconnect from whatever they’re doing. Many people will not respond to calls for “help,” but they’ll come out to watch the neighbor’s house burn down.
One of the things I hate the most about Pitbull owners is that it is *never* their pitbull that is the mean one! Complete disbelief of societal evidence.
To me I wish common sense was mandatory…
My neighbor below me has a huge German Shepard who thinks everyone is there to play. She’s nipped me twice on two separate occasions while on a leash and my neighbor has apologized profusely for the incidences so she made a point to leash her before getting out of the house and she now uses a shorter leash. I appreciate her efforts… but some people in the park near our house don’t leash their dogs and big dogs make me a little nervous because i’m only 5’1”
To all of you. We have a big 120# GSD and he won’t hurt anyone unless I give him the command.
Pit Bulls, or the Staffordshire Terrier,I loathe them as they have been inbred so much the breed is unpredictable in it’s behavior.
Not on a leash is an issue as you state there is a leash law.
Any aggressive behavior by an unleashed dog would be dealt with deadly force by me.
I’m not going to get chewed up by some mad dog, I’ll just shoot it.
In my work I am in many peoples homes (computer stuff).
I meet many dogs, some that I like and some that I ask the owners to put outside.
How many times have I been bit? Twice.
I’ll leave it at that.
Well, I doubt if we can hate every member of a dog breed, since like humans, no two dogs are alike. However, we can express our intense displeasure with people who insist on letting dogs of any breed run loose in populated areas. And we may rightfully be peeved with those who deliberately manipulate the descendants of large wild carnivores to create strains adapted for fighting and attacking.
So many tradesmen, if you take time to chat on the subject, will tell you of having been bitten or cornered by some oblivious customer’s “friendly” pet. Some folks seem as dumb about dogs as they are about horses. And that is very, very dumb!