Note: I see a lot of interesting dog owners. I may try to showcase my favorites each month.
At an adoption event at a PetSmart. Some dude approaches me and my foster dog Cosmo. The man tells me he is looking for an outdoor watchdog. Cosmo would have full freedom outside – no fence – with access to the garage and the kitchen. He tells me the house is on a busy frontage road and their previous watchdog got hit by a car and “probably wandered off and died.”
At a store called Natural Pet Center. A man comes in with a frantic, overweight retriever on a prong collar. “Are you ready to see the kitties?” the man says. He repeats this several times. The man glances around, seeking attention. His retriever pulls him to the cats that are up for adoption. The cats are very uneasy. “Look at the kitties! Look at the kitties!” the man keeps repeating. Each time he says this, his dog barks.
At obedience training class. One little dog’s owner is having an off night. The dog is full of energy, and the owner can’t get her to stay on command. He can’t get the dog to even look at him. At the end of class, the owner tells the dog she won’t be getting dinner that night or breakfast the next day or dinner the next day. “Maybe she’ll listen then,” he tells his wife. I wait to see if he’s joking, but I don’t think he is.
At another adoption event. A couple walks in with two large dogs that are not up for adoption. The dogs are pulling and out of control, panting heavily. One dog goes through the slow, squatting motions as though he’s ready to take a dump. He’s clearly very excited and nervous. He proceeds to leave a nice pile in the middle of the floor. The owners stand there for at least five minutes before someone finally cleans it up.
On a walk. I see a woman park her car at a stop sign. She leaves her car running. Gets out. Leaves her overly excited Yorkie loose in the car. She puts up a yard-sale sign. Her car is blocking all kinds of traffic, not to mention illegally parked. Meanwhile, her dog is yapping and scratching at the windows and doors and bouncing all over the place.
What’s a dog to do, Ace?
If you have a story to share, keep it concise (less than 100 words) and send to Lindsay@ThatMutt.com with the subject “Good dogs, bad owners.” Or add it to the comments below.
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Walking to the mail box with my slightly leash aggressive German Shepherd Dog. As couple with mid-size dog on flexi-lead approach, I put my girl in a down-stay off the sidewalk so the others can walk by without interaction. My girl is quiet, keeping her eye on the approaching dog, but staying put.
The man actually stops right by us and just stands there, watching us. Meantime his dog runs over to my girl, who now has had enough and starts barking. Guy still stands there, does nothing to control his dog, then “tsk tsk’s” me as I am making my girl go back into position. I actually told him to please keep moving! Boy, did I want to strangle him with that flexi-lead!!
You know, I have had similar experiences quite often. I’ll be walking a reactive dog, so I’ll politely move out of the way to avoid stress on everyone involved. Yet, the other person will allow their dog to come right up to mine, even if we are several steps off the main path. Some people just allow their dogs to do whatever they want, even if it’s potentially unsafe!
I really try to see the benefits of retractable, Flexi leashes. But it’s just that most people who use them are so irresponsible with them. Or at least those are the ones I notice. Ugh.
Not necessarily a bad dog owner, but an annoying person all the same, and Sylv’s comment reminded me of it.
We have a stranger-aggressive dog(She seems to pick and choose who she doesn’t like and who she does like) and so once on a walk with her, I saw two teenage, male bikers. I took our dog farther away, and had her sit, then I crouched down next to her. I calmly praised her as she sat still and watched the two boys, although I was blocking most of her sight line and was waiting for the two bikers to pass. When I looked over my shoulder to see if they had left, they had stopped their bikes and were just standing there staring at us. By this time, they were quite close, and my dog quickly got uncomfortable and started her barking/lunging/so angry and scared that she flips herself over routine, while the two boys finally started going again, but not before they started barking back at her.
It took me a good ten minutes before I was able to completely calm her down. Some people just have issues. I also realize that my own anger could have made her feel tense as well, but we could have avoided the whole thing if they had just kept on going.
Oh my gosh. That would frustrate me as well. My foster dog Cosmo is nervous around kids, so I usually do the same and move out of the way when kids are going by on bikes and such. Well, a few weeks ago, we did that and this one boy chased us on one of those motorized cars. He was probably only about 7 years old, and it was like he was trying to race us (we had been running). I wanted to turn around and slug him.
Off leash park, there’s a guy with his two dogs, one of which is protective of/agressive regarding the other. My terrier greets dog two. Dog one get agressive, and my terrier responds in kind (not caring that the other dog is 3x his size). We pick Larry up and walk away.
We put Larry down when we’re a ways away and he turns back and goes right after dog one again (this part, totally on us). We go back. Instead of trying to control his dog, guy just starts yelling at Larry. We, once again, reach in and pick Larry up, APOLOGIZE and turn to walk away.
Guy starts yelling at us for letting our dog that doesn’t back down greet his dogs in the first place. (Apparently, with the exception of his agressive dog, he thinks only ultra submissive dogs should be allowed at the dog park.) My husband (not very calmly) explains that his dog was the one that started it AND he’s sitting right inside the entrance to the park, increasing the chances that his dogs are going to meet other dogs, and since he knows the one dog is agressive, perhaps that’s not the best place to be.
(For the record, we have gotten much better at recognizing when a situation is about to develop with Larry and heading it off before it happens. He has gotten better at listening to us and disengaging.)
Yeah that’s a tough one. He (clearly) is always right
I have a story about me being a bad dog owner. I was in the parking lot of Bed Bath and Beyond which is in the same mall as a Petco we sometimes frequent. I was trying to put my stuff in the car with the dogs when Belle escaped passed me and was running around the parking lot. She wouldn’t come when I called and probably thought it was a great game. She ran right into Petco without any hesitation and was corralled by one of their people. She didn’t eat anything or make a mess but I felt so awful that I haven’t used that store since then. I could see people thinking I was an awful owner for letting my dog run wild in a parking lot and animal store…. I was embarresed and scared because I thought she was going to get hit. Looking back I thank the stars it turned out the way it did. We really started working on stay and wait after that!
Oh my gosh! I’m glad nothing too bad happened. I can think of all kinds of scenarios where I should’ve been paying better attention to my dog. In one situation, I had him off leash with his backpack on. We had been walking at a park with my boyfriend. Well my boyfriend had to drive home for something so he got in the car and as he was pulling out of the parking lot, my dog bolted after the car! So there goes my dog sprinting down the road after my boyfriend’s car as it was getting dark. I didn’t have a phone on me to be able to call my boyfriend, and he didn’t notice our dog chasing him. Luckily, once our dog realized he couldn’t catch the vehicle, he stopped and came back to me.
BAD dog owners!
Well Lindsay and everyone who has commented. All of these situations fail in comparison to what I am seeing in Oklahoma. I am currently relocating to OK. for my job. What I am seeing down here is dispicable, ridiculous and just plain iggnorant. I have recently purchased a house in the country between Sapulpa and Sand Springs. Both are suburbs of Tulsa. About every other day there are new stray dogs running around out in the country by my place. On Sunday I was working on my car in the shop and had the door open when all of a sudden I had a huge white dog looking over my shoulder watching what I was doing. Beautiful and friendly. No collar. Tuesday I was driving to work and going by one of my neighbors houses I see a Rott and another big dog sniffing in there garbage. I stopped and called to them and they both came running wagging their tales so hard I thought they were going to spin in a circle. No collars on either of them. People are just dropping these dogs off. I have checked with the neighbors and they say that there are always strays running around the area because of this. As long as they are friendly they don’t care.
I have called the local law enforcement and they basically say the same thing. If they are not causing problems they are not going to deal with it because the shelters are all full and they will just get put to sleep if they go to the pound. This is out of control! I have talked to a girl that runs one of the rescues down here and she has said that when people contact her she offers advice on how they can find a home for the dogs but will not take them in because they are over full already.
The other thing that I have found is that I am now in the heart of the dog fighting world. And pitbulls will just go missing. Yes they are getting stolen right out of peoples yards etc. The pound actually has a completely seperate area for Pitts, Rotts Boxers or any other dog that is sought after for fighting. And you have to go through a rescue to save them. The reason being is that dog fighters were coming in and basically saying I want that one and that one etc. paying the pound fees and using them as bait dogs or fighting dogs.
The more I see the more pissed off I get! I am not even going to go into details on the mentallity of some of the people down here. And their cure for a dissobediant dog. But it involves a gun.
The moral of the story is I am probably going to end up with way more dogs than I want hanging around my place.
Well good luck with getting everything settled in your new home. Gosh, that sounds so sad. I’ve always known the dogs in North Dakota have it good, but your words are a very good reminder that this is not the case everywhere. It’s overwhelming, I’m sure. Makes you feel helpless.
Did Bert end up getting adopted?
Sadly with all the government budget cuts, this is becoming more and more common everywhere. My hubby is actually doing a project for school on how the lack of shelter space is leading to more dog euthaneasia. A few cities in our area have even stopped contracting with the county to run their animal control because it’s still expensive and are instead contracting with private individuals who run rescue programs via foster care- meaning they don’t even have shelter space, and certainly don’t have anything near the capacity to take in all the dogs being abandoned or surrendered.
A community shouldn’t have to depend on the government to provide shelter space. Fargo, N.D., does not have a shelter paid for by the city. Instead we have rescue groups and a shelter that depend entirely on volunteers and donations. We do have a small city pound that holds dogs for a few days, but 96 percent of the dogs make it out of the pound alive thanks to our rescue groups, foster homes and volunteers.
I still remember JD’s breeder telling us people were calling and asking for the biggest and meanest puppy she had …
Oh, gosh. That’s terrible.
I have been a silent reader of your blog for a couple of months, and I had to comment on this.
I was walking my dog in my neighbourhood, and I saw a middle aged lady with a very FAT Jack Russell Terrier who was off leash. I was approaching her, and stopped a distance from her because I was not sure if her dog was friendly. She looked at me then yelled out “Go away, go away, my dog will bite your dog!”, while body blocking her fat dog.
Okaaaaaaay, well, my friendly dog was walking nicely on a leash next to me, it’s your unfriendly dog that is walking off leash.
Haha! Wow!
Flexi-leads are by far the worst leashes ever! It’s a license for people to let their dogs roam uncontrollably almost always tangling them or some innocent in the process.
It also amazes me the way people treat their dogs. I like to hope that it is ignorance and people really do not know better. So many people learned how to take care of their pets from their families growing up and never do any research on their own. It still amazes me to find that so many people think animals should not be in the house and only belong outside. It’s sad for the animals. I hope people are starting to wise up about the treatment of their pets.
Yeah I can’t stand Flexi leashes for the most part. They are fine of the dog is trained to heel. Otherwise, they are a nuisance.
I’m not so concerned about the dogs that live outside as a whole. I know a few, and they are just fine. Still, I know many dogs live their lives outside or in the garage and they are not very well cared for and they are not loved. That’s a sad situation, and I know it happens often.
Flexi leashes have their purpose-
We do not have a fenced back yard so our dogs only leave the house on leash. If we’re just doing a quick potty break to the back yard the flexi leash gives them space to roam around and find just that right spot. In the winter, it allows me to stand inside our sliding glass door while the dogs run out and do their business.
But, our dogs never go on a walk or anywhere other than the yard on a flexi leash.
Yeah, they have their purpose. I just wish more people would be responsible with those leashes.
Wow, sometimes it is pretty amazing what you see isn’t it? I think the worst example is the woman parking and leaving her car running… that could have been bad. I haven’t really seen anything too crazy lately, but I’ll keep my eyes open.
You’ll have to let me know!
Outside of a local dog park – My husband and I finish our long walk around a lake which ends at a dog park. We are walking past as a man exits with his three Shepherds. He says, “The youngest barks but don’t worry, he won’t bite!” As if on cue, his youngest dog exits hackles up and growling as he charges at my dog. I step in the way of the potential situation and (standing tall) “bark” at the other dog; the dog backs off and follows the alpha female dog to the truck, the owner is appalled.
You did exactly what I would’ve done.
It never ceases to amaze at the level of ignorance there is with people in regards to dogs. Very sad.
It is sad. Poor dogs.
It always makes me laugh when people bring their lunch in to the dog park thinking that it is a great place to sit at the picnic table to eat, and then are confused/frustrated/pissed when the dogs won’t leave them alone.
One day there were people eating KFC at a picnic table in our dog park. I have a Beagle. Guess who noticed KFC long before I ever did and ended up on the table with her nose in a bucket?
I apologized, because what my dog did was rude, but at the same time, what were they thinking? And especially what were they thinking bringing cooked chicken bones into a dog park?
You have to be joking – that is really irresponsible.
Haha!
Great blog! I just discovered it a few weeks ago, and am going through reading the archives. There’s a lot of useful information here, and I think you have a nicely balanced, nuanced view of dogs and dog ownership. It’s also such a relief to hear about your own struggles with dogs, despite your vast experience. It makes me feel much better as a first time dog owner (but trying *very* hard to be *very* conscientious!).
This isn’t so much a comment about bad dog owners, but rather rude ones… Maybe this comes across as b!tchy, but I find it very annoying when other owners assume that just because I’m also an owner, I want our dogs to meet and/or I want to stop and talk about our respective dogs… If I show no signs of slowing down to greet you, or am very clearly continuing my conversation with my human walking partner, then I don’t care *how* nice / friendly / well-behaved your dog is, I don’t want to stop and talk to you! Frequently I do think it’s nice to meet other people, and that’s a perk of being a dog owner, but sometimes I just want to be with my dog, and I don’t like that people assume that “I have a dog with me” = “I want to be interrupted regardless of what I’m doing”. Actually, it’s not just dog owners, it’s people in general who feel that if you have a dog you’re *always* up to talking to them about it… It’s like when you’re on the subway or a plane and you’ve got this great book you can’t wait to get into, and your neighbour asks “Whatcha reading?” and strikes up a conversation… I don’t know. Am I alone here? Maybe it’s just a culture shock from not being a dog owner to now being one. I’m surprised at how much license people take with my time now.
(Except kids. I don’t mind if they interrupt me, because they’re little and excited, and don’t know better, and they’re super cute and I think it’s nice to teach them how to approach strange dogs, so a good life lesson for them too. But adults should know how to read my body language.)
But a bad owner story? Our terrier mix is a year old and we’ve had him for about 8 weeks. When he came to us he was very scared / anxious and skittish. Although he’s worked through most of that now, he still doesn’t like “overwhelming” dogs. At the dog park, his favourite thing to do is chase / be chased, but he doesn’t like to wrestle, and will clearly indicate that to other dogs who try to wrestle him. So this one guy has a 6 month old Viszla that’s friendly, but overly rambunctious for our dog, and our dog started cowering and snapping at the air (not trying to bite, just trying to say “back off!”) when the Viszla wouldn’t give him space. We try to let Tarski work things out for himself, but it quickly became apparent that wasn’t going to work in this case, so my husband moved in front to block the Viszla, who kept running and jumping at our dog, but ended up jumping into my husband’s leg. Meanwhile, the owner is standing something like 10 meters away, saying “Easy Molly, Come Molly”, but so quietly that *I* could barely hear, and certainly the dog wasn’t paying attention, and he’s not even moving toward his dog! He finally hustled when he saw his dog run into my husband’s leg, and then yelled at my husband for leg-checking his dog, saying that he was going to take care of it! I mean, at what point? Aargh…
Yeah, dog parks are difficult. I avoid them most of the time because I can’t handle how annoying people are with their dogs. I probably wouldn’t bring a dog like yours to the park because overly submissive/skittish dogs often bring out that overbearing/excited/dominant behavior from other dogs. But if I were the owner of that vizsla, I definitely would’ve intervened much quicker!
I see your point. We seem to be, for the most part, *really* lucky with the dog park here in Ithaca, NY. I’d read about the pros and cons of dog parks, and so the first time we decided to go during an off-time, only to the small dog area, and walk around first with Tarski on a leash so that we could see how he felt about everything, and only once he seemed comfortable (and we’d gotten a feel for the other dogs) did we let him off leash. After he’d done really well there a few times, we went to the big dog area (in off-times only at first), and now he generally doesn’t have any problems. But actually, most importantly, the *vast* majority of the owners here seem to be very conscientious. I’d say about 97% of the people are paying attention to their dogs, and people are generally very on top of things and intervene as soon as things start to get a bit out of hand. With the exception of that Viszla owner (who has a bad rep among the other owners, it turns out) we’ve had really good experiences with the other owners being so kind and helpful to get Tarski confident and socialized. So that’s why we keep going, because he gets better every time we take him, and everybody seems to want to help him (and us) out! Proud owner moment: today he play-wrestled for the first time! With a (baby — 15 weeks old) Italian Mastiff!!
Oh good to hear! It makes a big difference when the other owners are helpful.
Christina, I definitely don’t think you’re being b*tchy about people approaching you with their dogs! I used to give people the benefit of the doubt with their dogs as my dog is very friendly and approachable. However, I have had to stop letting him approach other dogs (always tail wagging, ears submissive, even a little whining, but never jumping, barking, growling…EVER) because he has been snapped at 3 times by other dogs on a leash. Besides the fact that it’s good leash manners to sit and wait for permission to greet a dog, I am not chancing my little 5 1/2 lb dog getting snapped at by an ill-behaved dog.
ALSO, I hate it when people see us coming – I try to look like I’m in a hurry: eyes focused straight ahead, walking quickly, having Spike walking straight – and crouch down WAITING for us to approach them. We usually just walk on by, if I’m in a particularly bad mood, we’ll totally ignore the person. But REALLY, people. If I’m in a hurry I’m not going to stop and let you gush over my dog (even though he is really cute). I also HATE it when people literally stop and POINT at my dog saying loudly things like, “OMG Look at that dog!” or “Guys, look at that hilariously small dog!” Would you like it if I approached your kid and pet him on the head??
Don’t even get me started on the time I was on a bus and a pair of teenage kids came up and literally grabbed him out of my arms!
Aw, thanks, Alyssa! I’m glad I’m not the only one. I can’t *believe* that the kids just took Spike right out of your arms — that’s just crazy!!! Tarski’s really well behaved considering that we’ve only had him for 8 weeks, but he’s still learning… And you know, even once I can say that he’s “well trained” (whatever that means, since from what I hear, it’s an on-going process!), sometimes might just not be a good time to meet. The real eye-opener for me was the time I took him to the coffee shop with a book — I thought he could people watch and sunbathe while I read my book… Nope! We eventually had to leave because no one would leave us alone! (Though maybe I shouldn’t be surprised — he’s pretty stinkin’ cute!)
But you know, I guess what this post and comments show is that if a person lacks common sense in the rest of their lives, why wouldn’t they also lack that common sense when it comes to their dogs?
Well when you get a unique dog like a huge great dane or an especially tiny dog, you know people are going to notice. But I’m with you, I usually am not in the mood for people to come and talk to me and my dog, and I usually do not want to stop and have him play with other dogs because it teaches him bad manners. Usually the other dog is lunging (because it wants to play) and pulling and barking and it just gets my dog excited.
Yeah Bert got adopted. By me. I couldn’t let him go back to the kennel because I was moving. I hadn’t had one hit for anyone adopting him. So now Bert, Ruby and Bruno will have each other when the southern dogs make fun of their northern accent.
I was wondering if you had adopted him! Congrats to you and Bert!
My story isn’t that shocking, just incredibly frustrating:
A girl came into the dog shop I work at with her young, very attractive Burnese Mountain Dog. I overheard her say she’d just had a litter of puppies, and as I was helping her with a purchase, I commented on how good she looked for just having had puppies. She said “Yes! She looks great! She came through beautifully, and she’s almost a year old!” Startled that a dog under a year had had a litter, I asked how old the puppies were…”They’re almost 6 months now! Just like mommy!”
I had to just stop talking to this girl and walk away. It wasn’t enough that she was breeding a 6 MONTH OLD Burner, but she was SO PROUD of the fact…honestly…
Poor dog.
Oh,i just remembered one that happened about early spring
My dog and i were out on a lovely run,minding our own business and we see this couple walking with a dog that was not on a leash. Now i didn’t think anything about at the time,because the dog was off leash i assumed that it would be fine to just keep doing what we were doing,Boy was i wrong. As we were jogging by,the dog lunges at my dog. My dog instantly gets defensive and starts snarling back,and just as the dog lunges again i have to kick it away. The dog owners,i presume,were just standing there laughing. I took off at a sprint with my dog,to avoid anymore fighting but i sure would have liked to give those people a piece of my mind. My dog could have gotten seriously hurt.
That’s really too bad. I’ve had similar experiences. When I see a dog off leash and I am running, I can only assume the dog will chase me. It seems like a lot of dog owners do not realize their dogs have a natural prey drive to chase anything that moves. Most dog owners don’t have control over their off-leash dogs.