Our neighborhood is full of dogs, and most of the time, I love it. It’s nice to exchange small talk with the other owners when it’s my turn to take Ted for his walk, and I have definitely fallen into the cliché where I know all of the dogs’ names, but not all of the owners’ names.
That said, in light of some rare and unpleasant encounters, this edition of Dogarazzi comes with a plea:
Please put your dog on a leash whenever it is outside your home or an enclosed area. Please encourage your friends to do the same.
Over the weekend, I was out with Ted for his afternoon walk, and I noticed a dog out in a front lawn while his owner was working out in the yard. I stopped for a moment, since I couldn’t tell if the dog was tethered; he was a black dog with a brown muzzle and ears, easily larger than our golden retriever friend, Friday. I stood in the sidewalk, trying to figure out if I should continue our normal route past the house. I probably should have turned around.
Right away, the dog came padding over to us. He wasn’t aggressive, and he didn’t bark, but he was very insistent to sniff out Ted. I restrain myself from picking up Ted in times of stress because I don’t want to reinforce reactive, excited behavior, but I could tell that he was a little scared of this very outgoing, much larger dog. He tucked his tail between his legs and proceeded to circle me and wrap the leash around my legs, while the bigger dog continued to sniff.
All the while, the owner was calling out, “General! General! Come here! Come back here! Oh, he’s friendly! He won’t do anything! General! Come back here!” My ire quickly rose.
It was not until I was fully incapacitated from the winding leash that the owner came over and put a hand on General’s collar, repeating that “he would never do anything, he’s friendly, see what I mean?” I unwound Ted in stony silence and walked away in the direction that we came.
Even though I so wanted to say firmly, “Your dog should be on a leash,” or even “Please control your dog,” I could not bring myself to do it. The words stayed, paralyzed, on the tip of my tongue, and I wasn’t able to spit them out. I felt as though I would be implying that he was a poor dog owner or that General really would have gone after Ted. No, nothing like that. I just think it’s common sense and courtesy to control one’s animals, and the easiest way to do that is with a leash.
Why is it so easy for me to refuse to start driving until everyone in my car is wearing a seatbelt? Because it’s my car. Within that steel cage, I am in control, and I am responsible for what happens, so you buckle your seatbelt if you’re going to ride with me. Out in the world, I don’t feel nearly as assertive. For instance, I believe strongly in sending kids to public schools, but I don’t go telling others that they should do it because it’s outside the bounds of my responsibility, so to speak.
Keeping a dog on a leash is part of being a conscientious owner. In our neighborhood, a dog can go from a front door to a front lawn, to a sidewalk, and then the street in a matter of seconds. I understand that dogs can get loose by accident, but having a dog wander in an unenclosed lawn within spitting distance of a road, even while the owner is in the general area, is simply not a safe practice, in my opinion. The dog could be distracted by a kid on a bike, a child in a stroller, or even a car coming down the street that is probably not following the speed limit of 25 miles per hour. The leash is a dog’s seatbelt, and it is a safety precaution for the dog.
And, yeah, I’m concerned because Ted is my dog, and therefore, within my domain of responsibility. Plus, he’s a small dog that will usually submit to larger or more vocal dogs. JG worries that, if Ted is overstepped by a much larger dog, like General, that he won’t know what to do, and heaven help us if he accidentally nips the larger dog. Even if Ted is perfectly at ease with another dog, what am I supposed to do if the situation gets ugly? Keep cooing that Ted was always such a nice dog until he thought he was in mortal peril? I don’t think so.
I’m not upset because General was a mean dog, because he wasn’t. He was really quite amiable, and not at all mean. I’m more upset because it seems like some owners don’t see a problem until something drastic happens, like someone is bitten or a dog is hit by a car. Just because there wasn’t an actual altercation does not mean that the situation was under control. Our pets are animals, and we can’t know what will trigger those instincts.
I wish I had been able to say, calmly and decisively, that General was not under the owner’s control, however I would have phrased it. While I work up that courage for the future, please accept this public service announcement:
Please put your dog on a leash whenever it is outside your home or an enclosed area. Please encourage your friends to do the same.
Get your daily dog dose with Smalls, Kaya, Rufus, Ben, Gus, and Zapp!
10 comments
Thank you! I could have written this post myself!
We have a dog in our neighborhood that I always see walking up and down the sidewalk or hanging out in his yard. I avoid him, not because he’s mean, but because there is no owner to help keep the situation under control.
I have a smaller dog and a larger dog. Both are always on leashes when we are out. My dogs are very friendly, but they are animals. You never know when instincts will kick in or what will frighten your animal. We’ve had Rufus since he was a baby, but Kaya lived with another family for 6 years. She’s had 6 years of experiences that might cause her to react in a situation we wouldn’t expect. It’s just good dog ownership to keep your dog on a leash — for your own dog’s safety as well as others!
Amen to that. My hairdresser’s brother had a “nice dog that would never hurt anyone.” Until he jumped up and bit my hairdresser’s daughter’s face off. Almost literally. No matter how perfect a dog’s record is, like you said, they are still animals and owners should take appropriate precautions. It’s not being uptight and paranoid, it’s being responsible.
I know you and I have discussed this before, so you know how strongly I agree with what you’re saying. My standard response to owners of un-leashed dogs is “Your dog may be nice, but you don’t know that my dog is.” Why put your “nice” dog at risk like that?
I’d also like to add a second plea, if I may: Please put tags on your dogs with your phone number! Our neighbor’s puppy is constantly escaping and he doesn’t have a collar or tags. Yesterday Tim saw him run off and had to drive through the neighborhood to retrieve him because the neighbors weren’t home. Obviously the neighbors need to fix the hole in the fence, and they also need to put some damn tags on their dog. If Tim hadn’t seen the dog run off yesterday, they may never have seen their puppy again. And somehow they don’t seem to think the lack of tags or the hole in the fence is a problem worth fixing. Like you said, there’s no problem until something drastic happens. Tim was so mad at them and the whole situation yesterday he said he almost considered not following the dog on the chance that it could find a better home and the neighbors might learn a lesson. He didn’t follow through on that, of course, but he is planning on discussing the problem with the neighbors next time he sees them.
Plus, sometimes leashless dogs run away and get lost in blizzards! See: Cinnamon, February 2008. Cinnamon had never gotten lost before in thirteen years of not being tied up outside. It’s just not a good idea!
Thank you! I wish you could instruct every dog owner in the world to follow those simple rules. Dogs are not people, they’re not our children. They’re animals, and they do unpredictable things. You can’t reason with them, but you can train them.
I guess my only retort to my own unleashed dog is that we have an invisible fence that my dog is terrified of. So technically he is unleashed, but he is behind a “fence” of sorts. He will not go outside of the perimeter of the yard. He will come close to the edge, but WILL NOT go outside of it. Even if it is his favorite neighbor. He knows that if they come into the yard or the driveway that he can go to them. I should note we don’t have a sidewalk in the neighborhood so people just walk along the sides of the quiet residential road. When we are outside with our dog, I always wonder if people think he is going to come running at them and so I always tell those walking by that there is an invisible fence and he won’t go outside of it in hopes that they won’t be afraid or think us bad pet owners.
I totally agree that it is irresponsible, no matter how friendly you think your dog is, to let him run free. He could be friendly to a car and get hit, he could be friendly to another dog and get bitten, he could be friendly to a small child and scare them, he could be friendly to someone allergic to dogs and cause a reaction. You need to have your dog in your control. Get a leash. Or a fence. Or both.
Yes, yes, and YES! Even if the unleashed dogs’ owners are acting in their OWN interests (that is, taking measures so that nothing terrible happens to their own dog), everyone benefits. Seriously, I have no idea why people wouldn’t want to leash their dog. The streets of a neighborhood, where there are cars, children, other dogs whose behavior/temperament is unknown, etc, is no place to test the strength of any dog’s training. Especially where there is a size disparity concerned, ESPECIALLY where the dog could just as easily be leashed, why would anyone choose not to?
P.S. I think the seat belt analogy is very apt.
I couldn’t agree more. Peaches is a friendly boxer down the street from us, and her owners walk her up and down the block w/o a leash. Luckily, our dogs get along with her, but there are a few other dogs that she walks up to greet IN THEIR YARD that do not appreciate the intrusion. It just irks me that they continue to do this even with the minor scuffles that have happened.
We have this same problem where I live and it annoys me. One lady even lets her unleashed dog go potty right in the street. It is so awful. Not only do we have leash laws, we have potty laws, but the city does nothing, so not sure why we have the laws, but we do. I have a little dog and he got out of the fence once, I retrieved him and fixed the problem, because I want him to stay my pet and not become someone else’s. One kids, who never seems to be in school, always walks his dog with no leash and I tried to be okay with it until the dog rushed at me while I was in my garage painting one day. Just put your dog on a leash. How hard is that? Great post!
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