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Good dogs, bad owners: October 2011

The first edition of Good dogs, bad owners

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?

Cute black lab mix closeup wearing a choke collar

If you have a story to share, keep it concise (less than 100 words) and send to [email protected] with the subject “Good dogs, bad owners.” Or add it to the comments below.

Amber

Friday 4th of November 2011

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.

Lindsay Stordahl

Friday 4th of November 2011

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.

Lindsay Stordahl

Saturday 29th of October 2011

Poor dog.

Alyssa

Saturday 29th of October 2011

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...

Shane Tommerdahl

Friday 28th of October 2011

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.

Lindsay Stordahl

Friday 28th of October 2011

I was wondering if you had adopted him! Congrats to you and Bert!

Christina

Friday 28th of October 2011

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...

Alyssa

Saturday 29th of October 2011

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!

Lindsay Stordahl

Saturday 29th of October 2011

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!