Educating dog owners

[Gob]

I was walking our Yappy, and the mother in laws Staffy, at one of my regular walks this morning, the pups being at the vets, having their nuts cut off. I stopped to take a photograph. I looked up to see a middle aged woman running towards me.

Breathlessly she spouted out; "I'm glad I caught up with you. My husband's coming up with our Weimaraner, and she's not good with other dogs, so can you go another way?"

I looked back to see her husband being towed along by the dog.

The subsequent conversation went thus;

"You mean, as you have no control over your dog, you want me to change my regular walk"
"It's not her fault, she just isn't good with other dogs."
"Keep her on a lead then."
"We do but she can pull us around, and she sometimes gets off the lead."
"So you have a dog which you cannot control, even when on a lead?"
"Yes she's very strong and boisterous, so would you mind going off the path some way and leaving us go through?"
"Yes."
"Well don't be surprised if she attacks your little dogs then."
"Don't you be surprised if when she does, " (I extracted my metal tripod with a cast ball head on it from my pack), I beat the living shit out of her."
"You wouldn't!"
"Oh, try me."
I strolled off. Looking back they had the dog tied to a fence post, it was going mental. Better than being it dead I suppose.

Was I wrong?

[Sean]

Yes you were. You should've threatened to beat the owners to death, not the dog.

[Gob]

Hmmm.. nice thought. But I could not let my dogs be harmed, and if they were being attacked, I'd have to deal with the dog first, then the owners.

[alice]

If they insist on taking the dog for a walk without having proper effective control of the animal they could look at more effective restraints to minimise the danger to others.
- If the dog sometimes gets off the lead, get a proper harness and lead, instead of just a collar and lead - if they had a good harness and it was put on properly, the dog would not be able to get out. Also, if might make it easier to control the dog.
- If they are worried that the dog is not good with other dogs, get a muzzle. Then it can't accidentally attack anything.

Both the above are easily found in pet shops and should have been pretty obvious - a lot easier than having the woman running ahead warning everyone about the dog every time they go for a walk.

Also, nowadays there are dog trainers easily found in phone directories who help teach owners how to properly train the dogs, and also how to stop or minimise behavioural issues.
I'd rather put the hours into training the dog properly than have a panic every time I took the animal out in public.

And because they didn't do any of that, and they were on the street with an unpredictable animal that they couldn't properly control - of course you did the right thing.

[oldr_n_wsr]

I never understood how people let their dogs control them. Training when young is key. If you have an unmanagable dog and don't know how to train it or can't afford to hire a trainer, then you should not have a dog.

That dog needs to socialize more with other dogs. They should take it to a training class with a trainer where other dogs are present and taught how to behave and interact with other dogs.

[Rick]

no

[Daisy]

People like them bug the crap out of me.

Whilst I'm not yet a year into my Canine Behaviour Degree, I already know that pretty much all dog behaviour problems stem from dumb owners not bad dogs.

They have clearly let her rule the roost. in her head she's doing nothing wrong by pulling them and attacking other dogs because she has never been show another way. She's probably not an irretrievable dog but they are probably irretrievable owners.