I regularly meet people like that when I'm camping. I find it pretty frustrating. So many rules like that have basis in reality, they are not just meant to annoy.
I KNOW that my dog would never hurt anyone.
But I also know that no one else in the world has spent hundreds of hours with my dog, and to them he is a strange and large animal. Inevitably some of these ppl probably have some kind of childhood trauma related to dogs.
So I always have him leashed where the rules are to have a leash.
The people _never_ ask if my dog on her 2 meter leash (the law in Arizona, btw) is friendly, dangerous, anything. They just announce that their dog isn't dangerous to us.
So often the small dog runs up to my dog's face full speed, centimeter from her nose, gets satan-barked at and driven away from us. she's sensibly trying to protect me and her from the little barely tethered full speed maniac.
The people ask if my dog was abused. Nope: had her since she was three months old, the feral mom and others were all adopted. They just don't seem to consider that _they_ were aggressive, in dog body language. And that's hopefully eye opening for them.
On a serious note, I miss the wide open spaces I could bring my dogs to in AZ. Where I live in NorCal it’s practically impossible and even if I could let my dog off leash in some places, the poison oak often stops me from even considering it.
Be glad in NorCal there aren't the ubiquitous rattlesnakes and babies this time of year. And of course the heat is an outdoors dealbreaker still for a few more weeks, except at dawn. Canine cabin fever. But i sure miss the more pleasant outdoorsy weather in NorCal.
More than once, I've been put in the position where my dog is getting agitated because they're on leash, their dog can't be controlled because they're off leash, and we're rapidly approaching the "Swift kick or risk injury" stage.
"My dog is off leash because I want them to have freedom" is a profoundly selfish decision if you're in a place to encounter other dogs.
This is cultural, I think. In the UK at least it’s often the norm for dogs to be off leash in open areas like commons (public land, usually grassy or wooded, or a mix of the two), or in other settings where they’re away from roads and won’t encounter livestock.
On public footpaths in the countryside farmers will put up signs indicating where livestock are and where dogs need to be kept on leash. The rest of the time, again, most dogs will be off leash.
Compliance is really high, with almost all dog owners I see following these rules.
There’s a deterrent as well: if your dog is bothering farm animals the farmer is within their rights to shoot the dog.
I do think the post you’re responding to has a very naive view of dog psychology though. Thousands of years of selective breeding means that dogs are fundamentally not wild animals, and as such their behaviours and needs are quite different from their wild relations, such as wolves. Many breeds of dog are so far removed that they would very likely be incapable of surviving in the wild: I’m thinking principally of designer breeds like pugs which, overall, I strongly disapprove of.
[0] To the point where we briefly considered naming a dog Fenton, but then realised the humour would wear off pretty quickly and it wouldn't really be fair on the dog.
Dogs encounter eachother all the time when you're out on a walk and it's... fine (again, I'm talking UK here). What's the worst thing that happens that you're all paranoid about your dog meeting, gasp, the horror... another dog?
This makes no sense to me.
I assure you, even in the uk, dogs are still dogs.
To be fair, I am talking about three or four incidents over twenty years.
...my dog is getting agitated because they're on leash...
Ideally, I would like the people for whom this is important to use a new unambiguous word. Though this ship seems to have sailed despite there apparently being a number of possible candidates.
That aside, the author of the post to which we are referring must know the sex of his dog so why be ambiguous?
And the singular usage of they/them has been going on since at least the 14th century.
Are you suggesting that we dispense with he/his/she/her in all cases? Like in this one to refer to a male or female dog?
Even the most friendly and easygoing dog becomes violent when they approach another dog and it lashes out.
If I have to kill or harm your “friendly” illegally unleashed dog to keep me and my dog safe I will- luckily I have not had to. Please leash your dog.
I move with my golden retriever back to the states. Should someone have a dog friendly place to rent in NJ close to NYC, Hoboken....
I have recently been in Mount Baker’s wilderness where dogs off leash away from trailheads are fine and also in Mount Shasta wilderness where pet dogs are not allowed even on leash. There is latitude for local tweaks to the rules in specific wilderness areas across the US. The US also has vast swaths of BLM and other lands where all kinds of fun recreation (hunting, dogs off leash, OHV’s, and all kinds of other things are allowed).
[1] https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/psicc/specialplaces/?cid=stel...
[1] https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/woman-drowns-kings-ri...
Maybe this is a cultural thing, both in terms of people's expectations of encountering dogs in public places, and in terms of the way dogs are trained and conditioned to respond to stimuli. Maybe keeping dogs on leashes prevents them from learning the skills they need to be off-leash reliably.
A well behaved dog off-leash is not a problem - but the rule isn’t against badly behaved dogs or inattentive owners - the rule is against off-leash, period. It isn’t fair to the good ones.
The only reason we emphasize the leash is because any idiot is allowed to get a dog and mistreat it. So we leash them for the owner's sake really, not for any inherent fault of the dog.
So I can't argue with the rules to keep dogs leashed, I just refuse to do it.
Mine is tiny, it flies in the cabin on planes even because it's under 8kg.
But I've seen people with huge belgian malonois off leash, and they make a point of showing everyone around them how well trained it is. It walks next to them the whole time, they regularly give it commands to follow on their walk. So you have a responsibility with a big dog, because it can do more damage, and I think it's a good idea to demonstrate to any doubters around you that you can control it.
But if you just let a pittie go and then stare at your phone, you shouldn't be allowed to handle an animal.
But yeah this is a very hot topic because why should responsible people and good dogs be punished collectively because there are morons? I want more regulations in getting an animal. I see sooo many of them mistreated, neglected, when a child is born for example, now they're just being dragged along after the pram. Common human condition to be short sighted and get a dog as a fun item, but it lives for maybe 15 years. It's a huge commitment.