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Hundreds of new dogs round here - absolutely hideous. The school walk is a nightmare, the poo bags are everywhere and I got told off for shielding my 3 year old daughter, from an over enthusiastic puppy, with my foot (whilst tempted I didn't actually kick it).
On the radio there was a claim that dog food supplies are running low.
I hate dog owners in the suburbs.
Hundreds of new kids round here – absolutely hideous. The dog walk is a nightmare, the crisp bags are everywhere and I got told off for shielding my 3 year old cockapoo, from an over enthusiastic child, with my foot (whilst tempted I didn’t actually kick it).
On the radio there was a claim that baby food supplies are running low.
I hate child owners in the suburbs.
😂👌
I agree with both of you
Live and let live. Plenty of people do things that I hate or can't stand. That's life. Either tolerate it or somehow take yourself out of it, like move away from the suburbs.
We'll see after lockdown what the real score is with the dogs. For me personally I'll never return to the office full time and have wanted a dog for as long as I can remember so the current period enabled me to get one. Wont be handing it back after lockdown and happy to pick up all its poos and carry to a suitable bin.
Stocks of many things are running low as a result of increased demand. that's what happens when you pay millions of people to sit at home and twiddle their thumbs. Shortage of bike stuff globally for example. I'm sick of getting prompts from wiggle to buy stuff, going to their website only to fine there is nothing I want in stock.
I think the benefits of dog ownership in terms of peoples mental health has been a godsend to millions of people at this time and I'll be willing to bet that the majority of dogs bought in lockdown will enjoy good lives with their new owners.
Hundreds of new bikes round here – absolutely hideous. The walk is a nightmare, etc. etc.
Dogshit and litter. Grrrrrrr.
The problem here isn't dogs or toddlers or bikes or litter.
It's people. Specifically inconsiderate arseholes.
There are still the same amount of those that there always were.
Circumstances are just causing them to manifest differently.
Don't be coming around here with your measured and rational analysis!
Pfft! This place is going to the dogs (and for balance: children)
All of the above made me smile, thanks !
Don’t be coming around here with your measured and rational analysis!
I'm sorry, Miss. I have a cold
Next time it could be a child’s face.
Same with an old dog.
I'm sure the Mars landing was filmed in next-door's garden.
On the radio there was a claim that dog food supplies are running low.
I think the issue is a plastic shortage used for the silly single use pouches of best organic hand made turkey and caviar roast dinner for Tinkerbell the shitzopoodadoorshepardcock.
No issue with getting hold of 20kg sacks of working dog food for normal dog owners.
New dog owner here.
Basically you look at all the things that other dog owners used to do that annoyed you and don't do it.
So I keep it on the lead, I pick up its shit and carry it home, I don't let it annoy other people and dogs unless they clearly want to interact with it.
Its really not that hard.
Its really not that hard
But apparently it is.
Its really not that hard.
Have you tried changing to a dry feed? Best to avoid letting it have any bread or leftovers too.
No issue with getting hold of 20kg sacks of working dog food for normal dog owners.
Has also been our experience.
Its really not that hard
another thing, morons that get dogs and neither walk it nor train it.
get. in. the. sea.
I was in the park on my own with my two kids last lockdown and a dog ran up to them (it was bigger than they were). Managed to pick up my 2 year old, but it ran after my terrified 4 year old. It ended up knocking her over and got on top of her. I had no idea what it was going to do, but i'm struggling to fend off the dog, rescue my 4 year old AND hold onto my 2 year old. In the end it snatched her soft toy and ran off. About 10 minutes later, owners appeared with mangled soft toy saying sorry and blaming their dog trainer.
She's pretty f*cking terrified of dogs now. We still get owners letting their dogs run up to us though, and much like the OP I shield the kids from them.
A bloke I used to ride with had a dogberry flick up under his glasses. Can't remember the details but I know he had to go to hospital twice. I hope it wasn't this:
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/toxocariasis/
I do tire of the comment "ooh, I wish mine was that well trained".
Stop for a moment and ask yourself why my dog is well trained. Do you think she came out of the box like that? Or perhaps both myself and my wife (the wife more so actually) work with her regularly, have found the positive trigger she will respond to and make sure she views us as high value.
The more people I meet, the more I love my dog.
Unfortunately, the rescue centre we support is suddenly seeing an upturn in the number of dogs that need help. It had gone quiet for a while.
Basically you look at all the things that other dog owners used to do that annoyed you and don’t do it.
Yep that's what we be working on achieving with our new puppy.
No jumping up
No going crazy at the door bell
Letting go of a fetch toy.
Letting my lad kick a boy without getting in the way EVERYTIME
Walking with relaxed lead
I guess SIT on cue covers a lot of bases, but what else ?
Letting my lad kick a boy without getting in the way EVERYTIME
I thought that sort of thing had been frowned upon since abolition?
I guess SIT on cue covers a lot of bases, but what else ?
You might want to think about recall, kind of handy knowing that your dog will come back when you want!
Sit plus good recall is probably most of the way there.
Its hard work. Some days I think my 6 month Cocker Spaniel is ready for Crufts, other days its like she fell from the sky that morning and won't listen to a single thing.
But she is still just a puppy so I know I just need to keep being patient and consistent.
I thought that sort of thing had been frowned upon since abolition?
🙂
That's what I do ... let my lad set upon the little kids instead of allowing our dog to do so.
Sorry we shouldn't joke ... appolos to those adversely effect by bad dog owners
The reading I've done in the the last couple of months really has brought it home to me how poorly people train their dogs and the excuses they make for it.
I for one will berate an owner if their dog jumps up me from now on
I was bitten on the hand and leg yesterday by a “lock-down” puppy...well, when I say “puppy”, it’s around 6 months old now I’d guess. It was on a lead. Classic lock-down puppy syndrome. Hasn’t been socialised properly and just doesn’t know how to behave around humans, other than it’s owners. Constant fear-aggressive barking which must do their neighbours’ heads in. And yesterday’s bite was classic fear aggression as well.
Awkward bit, the owners are friends of mine. I’m fine about it, but I know the owners aren’t.
I might retrain as a dog-trainer, there’s going to be a lot of business once society opens back up again.
Recall yes defo
In time and I know it will take time, for both training and until the dog is old enough, I'd like it to run free by my side as I run XC.
Yep, noticed on the net when the neighbour's lab attacked and punctured another dog whilst on walkies it was because it was being 'protective', utter refusal to accept responsibility and a complete lack of decency.
No issue with getting hold of 20kg sacks of
workingdog food for normal dog owners
Dog shelters are going to be packed to the gills once furlough ends, and shady dog breeders must be making a killing right now, yay! :-/
I liked dogs when they weren't everywhere all the time, plus now they're owned by an even greater proportion of people who haven't really thought it through properly.
The problem here isn’t dogs or toddlers or bikes or litter.
It’s people. Specifically inconsiderate arseholes.
There are still the same amount of those that there always were.
[Pedant mode on] actually the population has increased in the UK by about 13m in my life time. I suspect the number of aholes has gone up as well
Neighbours of mine got a lab puppy about six months ago, so 8-9months old now.
They are at home all the time so dog has never been left.
They have never taken it out in the car
It has never been off the lead, and they have no immediate plans to do so
I offered them some of my books for training, they refused
It is allowed on the sofa, upstairs, in the beds, it has no boundaries
They never seem to spend any time actually training it at all
Yet they say to me that that they wish their dog was as well behaved as mine. Its a real shame, it a lovely dog and it is being let down by its owners.
Dog shelters are going to be packed to the gills once furlough ends
I suppose it depends whether people are offloading them privately or selling them on instead. But when lockdown ended last year and we were all told to go back into the office there wasn't much change.
Despite the condescension I think most new owners were probably going to get a dog at some point anyway.
And there were plenty of bad owners before that coped just fine, there'll just be a few more.
Besides, puppies don't just fall from the sky, that's why they're now £3k+ as there's no supply. You can't breed them that much faster however much the price goes up. Even if you double it, it's still a blip amongst the 15 years or so they're around.
How many are going to be binned off to dog's homes once everyone's back to work and can't be bothered with walking and cleaning up in winter?
As someone's already said, it's not the dogs but the lazy self-entitled owners.
And no, nature reserves aren't where you take your badly trained dog for a nice run around...the clue is in the name. Your f'ing dog is NOT part of nature.
One of our neighbours was walking a Shetland Pony on a lead this week.
One upmanship at its finest imo.
Going to need some big bags...
If it was up to me, they'd all be rounded up and humanely put-down...
But then what would you do with all the unfortunate dogs who no longer have owners? 🙁
Why thankyou, yes. That's my coat, the muddy dog-walking one covered in mildew.
"Dogshit and litter.".... sounds like the name of The Stereophonics comeback album
LOL, you should hear what dog owners say about selfish dangerous inconsiderate cyclists
But anyway, I guess the important thing is we’re all fighting like rats in a sack
I do tire of the comment “ooh, I wish mine was that well trained”.
Yes - me too! Like he just arrived well-trained and we haven't spent hours, days, weeks training, rewarding, praising, exercising, warning, calling, treating, repeating, etc. - or that that's not an ongoing practice! He's only 7 months old...
One of the best bits of advice I got was from a friend who's been raising and training puppies to become Guide Dogs for years, which was basically expose them to as much as possible as young as possible, so they're not scared of anything. People, places, sights, sounds, smells - as diverse and as much as you can before they're about 14 weeks old. It really worked. He wasn't scared of fireworks, buses, horses, people in wheelchairs, thunder - it helps so much.
He's still a bit of a dick if there are squirrels around, or discarded food, but he's getting better and looks up at me to check it's OK before running off, most of the time. We've got the humpy stage still to come but putting in all the effort when he was tiny to get the training off to a good start has made a massive amount of difference to his behaviour for (I hope) the rest of his life.
Its hard work
We're about to get a cocker puppy, end of next week. Very much ready to put the work in, but I'm really really anxious about it all. I hope there are more good days than bad.
My gf has wanted a dog all her life, and she has been on a waiting list from last June.
Another lockdown pup here, who is now just over 5 months old. I echo many of the previous comments, and yes it’s usually the owner rather than the dog at fault.
We spend time every day on recall, sit and stay, and it is slowly sinking in, but not to a level where we can trust him off the lead unless in a very safe place (from POV of livestock and cars mainly). We have spend time socialising him with other dogs and people though haven’t cracked the separation thing yet, given that there has been at least one person in the house pretty much since he arrived with us.
It is harder work than I suspect many people envisage, hence the proliferation of poorly trained unsocialised pups around.
@stcolin it _is_ hard work, especially at first when it feels like you've got a small alien in the house that you don't understand, wails at night, won't crap where you want it to, bites anything and everything, scratches, barks at random things, seems hungry all the time even after being fed, eats things it shouldn't, sicks up things it shouldn't have eaten, pees in the most expensive places...
But it gets better. There are some excellent YouTube videos out there - in the lockdown absence of actual dog trainers we had Zak George, McCann and Fenrir Dog Training to advise us; clicker training was a revelation and the time will pass quicker than you realise. And having a well-behaved dog happily trotting off the lead by your side and looking at you when you call his name or running back to you when you call him back to you is a lovely thing and well worth all the effort!
especially at first when it feels like you’ve got a small alien in the house that you don’t understand, wails at night, won’t crap where you want it to, bites anything and everything, scratches, barks at random things, seems hungry all the time even after being fed, eats things it shouldn’t, sicks up things it shouldn’t have eaten, pees in the most expensive places…
Absolutely cannot wait.
People, places, sights, sounds, smells – as diverse and as much as you can before they’re about 14 weeks old. It really worked. He wasn’t scared of fireworks, buses, horses, people in wheelchairs, thunder – it helps so much.
Mines almost 3yo, now and very much agree with this, but hes a 'ratter' and can still bolt after a rodent or a plasic bag blowing across his line of sight, if the mood takers him.
For that reason he's never off the lead, unless in a place he can't escape from - as much for his own safety than anything else.
I've had arsehole cyclists silently speed up behind me with no warning on a few occasions, arseholes exist in any demographic group.
I’ve had arsehole cyclists silently speed up behind me with no warning on a few occasions, arseholes exist in any demographic group.
I'm interested in this... I definitely agree arseholes exist in any demographic group, but I don't understand why a cyclist speeding up would make them an arsehole.
As a dog-walker it must be slightly surprising to have a cyclist pass quickly, however as a cyclist if there's a dog on the path and I can't predict what it's going to do, I'd rather be out of its way as quick as is feasible. I don't think any cyclist wants to hit a dog, do they? I did it once in a park, a small dog ran at full pelt out of a bush and although I slowed down a lot and swerved, I still couldn't avoid hitting it. It was un-harmed, yelped and ran back to its owner, but there's no way I would have wanted to hit it on purpose or intentionally done anything near a dog that would cause it to jump nearer my bike.
The 4% rule applies.
4% of the population are arseholes. They are in your work, your family, your street, they are cycling, they are walking dogs, they are driving cars. They are arseholes. They are everywhere. No point stressing about it, it is just statistics and fact. In this thread people have noticed that the 4% are buying pullies (and cycling up behind people)
In some sectors the number is higher than 4%, sometimes significantly so. But that baseline figure remains the same. Sometimes best to accept it and move on.
however as a cyclist if there’s a dog on the path and I can’t predict what it’s going to do, I’d rather be out of its way as quick as is feasible. I don’t think any cyclist wants to hit a dog, do they?
Of course not, I ride a bike and have a dog that I walk with (usually on tow paths) , and drive, so I can see all aspects.
It's about being aware and responsible, and warning people of your approach.
I'm happy to stand aside on a tow path to let bikes past, if Im aware they are tanking up behind me... one time my little dog almost got T-boned (was on a lead), was someone a bike, luckily I heard his tyre noise and got the dog out of the way just in time.
I know it's uncool, but use a loud bell, people! it's not a silver bullet but it helps, unless your a jogger with headphones on (thats an argument for another thread lol!) 😀
I did shout after him, something along the lines of 'get a bell, W***er!' and got an insult back whilst the P**k peddled off. If I had been able to catch up with him, I'd have kicked him off his bike into the canal, and I'd have chucked his bike in after him.
I did shout after him, something along the lines of ‘get a bell, W***er!’ and got an insult back whilst the P**k peddled off. If I had been able to catch up with him, I’d have kicked him off his bike into the canal, and I’d have chucked his bike in after him.
As violence always makes the world a better place....
The cyclist then climbs out the canal, follows you home and torches your house in the middle of the night.
Everyone lives happily after except you and your family who burn to death.
etc etc
With the increase in dog ownership during lockdown I fear this will only get worse
https://www.rcseng.ac.uk/news-and-events/media-centre/press-releases/be-dog-safe/
There is some good advice in the article too
if there’s a dog on the path and I can’t predict what it’s going to do, I’d rather be out of its way as quick as is feasible
Er, everything I know about dogs tells me it's better to go slower (or stop). eg. Easier to avoid if they walk in front of you (they nearly always do) and far less likely to chase a slow moving thing. I encountered quite a few this weekend just gone, slowed down, owner got the dog under control and I passed, thanking them and the dog with a smile. Why do people get all angsty and make life hard for themselves? Oh yeah I forgot, cos they're dicks.
I did it once in a park, a small dog ran at full pelt out of a bush and although I slowed down a lot and swerved, I still couldn’t avoid hitting it. I
"I had to swerve all over the place before I hit him."
We have spend time socialising him with other dogs and people though haven’t cracked the separation thing yet
Hmmm. You want to get that one done ASAP.
Our previous dog (rescue) was 1 year old when he arrived, never separated from family/pack/etc (not trained at all as it goes) and was a complete nightmare as regards separation anxiety - didn't get over it fully until about age 6.
“I had to swerve all over the place before I hit him.”
Context though, I've hit a Spaniel which launched out the bracken at Swinley (Owner nowhere in sight). I can probably stop in the distance I can see, I can't stop in 6ft though.
The 4 legged equivalent of this:
In the dog owners' defense, whoever they were, I'm not sure the average dog owner probably understands MTB trails any more than the average MTBer understands dog psychology (see the number of forum users who'll happily resort to kicking them).
Er, everything I know about dogs tells me it’s better to go slower (or stop). eg. Easier to avoid if they walk in front of you (they nearly always do) and far less likely to chase a slow moving thing. I encountered quite a few this weekend just gone, slowed down, owner got the dog under control and I passed, thanking them and the dog with a smile. Why do people get all angsty and make life hard for themselves? Oh yeah I forgot, cos they’re dicks.
+1
Unless you're so unfit that braking and accelerating is a chore, just slow down and pass them.
You wouldn't accept "I went past you fast and close to minimize the time I spent in the other lane" from an overtaking car driver, would you?
Met a bloke for the second time on todays lunchtime walk. 17 wk old Lab puppy off the lead. Perfectly fine with my 2 spaniels and very submissivem but then just follows us as obviously 2 dogs to play with is far more exciting than going back to the owner who was practically whispering his name! This is the same as happened the first time out paths crossed. I have to hang around until he comes and puts it on the lead. Today I decided to just keep walking with my 2 and see if he goes back. Obviously he didn't so I had to stop eventually.
Owner walks back to us "oh I thought he was getting better at coming back". Inside I'm screaming he's 17 weeks old FFS! He's not going to come back to you when there's dogs to play with! You have to make yourself more exciting than them you big lumbering idiot of a softly spoken whispering man! Externally of course I just make polite noises and keep on my way.
Next time the internal screaming might just become external. I'm not a confrontational person but how else is he going to learn? This is a grown man, looked around late 50's - surely can read a little bit about puppy training? One day that dog is going to leg it after something and he'll be wandering around whispering it's name for days.