[Roxy]

I like dogs - we have 5 farm dogs.

This morning, as I often do, I walked through the field path, then along the canal towpath to Tesco.  Because of clamping down in the village on dog mess, more and more people are walking their dogs along the towpath.  There are the responsible owners who clean up after their pet, but others blatently walk on.  What they do not realise, is that ANY footpath has the same rules ......no dog mess.

Also, they all seem to have their dogs off the lead, and I have seen some dog fights.  But what does get me, is the way they let their dog run up to you, and jump up.  I have had this happen numerous times, and most owners apologise, but then say "he always does that" or the one this morning, when I nearly got knocked in the canal when two large paws belonging to a lively black lab hit me in the chest  "he is still young".  What I noticed is  that none of the owners actually reprimanded the dog for jumping up .....so they will never stop it, will they!!

Like I said, I like dogs, but not everyone does ......and not everyone will like muddy paw marks on their nice clean clothes.

[robert waddell]

knee in the stomach will work dont know about the dog owner

[sabrina]

I had a wonderful friend who always carried poo bags, she thought nothing of walking up to someone, hand over the bag and stand there until they cleaned up their dogs mess. As for other people's dogs jumping up, not good for ones clothes and does the owner wabt the cleaning bill ?

[ellisr]

I have people walking the public paths through my fields and I always walk around with my poop bag dispenser and do not have a problem giving them to the owner if there dog goes in my field. As for jumping up I find if I raise my voice in a sharp 'NO' to most dogs they don't make contact and if the owner has anything to say I normally start with 'well that is the word you use to tell your dog it is not acceptable you better practise it'. I don't expect dogs to be good all of the time but it is always good if they have manners and know the difference between right and wrong behaviour. I have 3 dogs myself and only 1 is allowed off the lead whilst walking as he is extremely good on command and runs a mile from other dogs, the other 2 are good with commands but I prefer for them to be on leads as they are curious of other dogs and I prefer if they were with me and safe as other dogs may not be so friendly and attack them. I had an episode a couple of weeks ago when someone decided to walk my land with there dog off the lead and it started to chase my pregnant ewes until the 2 rams turned on it and butted it head on knocking it out, the owner threatened to sue me until I pointed out that it was on my land and it was an offence to allow there dog to worry sheep and it could be shot if caught by a farmer or myself again. That calmed her down for a few minutes until she started again she soon calmed down when i told her the ewes are in lamb and she would be paying for any problems or miscarriages that occur because of this. I have seen her a couple of times walking her dog on a lead around the village but not over my land.

[doganjo]

I can see this from both sides.  All my dogs except one (my 15 month old pup)don't jump up, and on most occasions ignore people - unless they look as if they have a treat in their pockets as one woman did on a public woodland track a few weeks ago.  My youngster who is an extremely bouncy lad saw her hand going in her pocket as she was coming towards us and she took it out and put it in front of her - I thought she was going to give him a treat and I shouted don't give him anything, she put her hand back in her pocket and Bobby jumped up on her - she started to scream at me to get him under control, even though he had already gone off hunting rabbits.  I apologised (quite profusely!)for the two muddy paw prints on the front of her pale blue jacket then started walking off after him in case he became disorientated.  At this point her adult son came running after me, grabbed my shoulder, whirled me round, and gave me a load of swearwords saying that I needed to give them my name and address so they could claim a new jacket for his mother.  I quietly told him it was the same type as mine and that it washed, went on my way to a torrent of abuse.  A little further on I met another lady with a light coloured jacket and called Bobby to me, putting him on the lead.  She asked why I had stopped him saying hello, and was he aggressive. I told her what had happened as I was quite upset and she said not to worry, he was obviously still a bouncy puppy, and anyway people shouldn't come on a country walk with light coloured clothes - laughing at herself as she said it.  It works both ways doesn't it?  My dogs are only allowed to run free in fenced off areas where they cannot get to other animals, although as trained gundogs they would not normally look at sheep, cattle, horses etc.  I never go on private land.

[knightquest]

We have a huge problem in the parks around Birmingham with young male humans thinking that their dogs are p*nis extensions and setting them on other people and their small dogs. They don't pick on people who look fairly tough themselves or have big dogs. Strange that!

I find that the people in the parks who have their dogs off lead can't control them and find it hard to walk the dog without it pulling. Training would be a start! Perhaps I expect too much.

I don't let my dogs off lead if anyone else, human or dog is around. They are big dogs and people shouldn't be scared or inconvenienced by what is MY responsibility. That said, there have been times when someone has appeared out of no where. I expect then to apologise for any problems caused and for them to accept that sometimes this happens. I am quick to stop my dogs if such a thing happens but once an apology is made then fair enough.

Saying to me however, when my dogs are on lead, that their dog is friendly and only playing when it is plainly stalking acts as a red rag to a bull. I don't care what their dog is like, if it comes up to us and creates havoc just because they can't be a*sed to have them on a lead then they get both barrels. Figuratively of course, not literally 

Some people are just selfish and inconsiderate. Don't even start me on people who get the dog poo up and leave it on the grass in the bag? WTF is that about?

Rant over.......sorry 

Ian

[Rosemary]

Some people are just selfish and inconsiderate. Don't even start me on people who get the dog poo up and leave it on the grass in the bag? WTF is that about?

Or hang them in trees. One of our schools, when I worked for the Cooncil, planted a community woodland and folk picked up the poo but hung the bags on the trees, like some grotesque Christmas 

[robert waddell]

rosemary was that not a form of protest?

[knightquest]

rosemary was that not a form of protest?

Protesting about what?

Ian

[robert waddell]

having to pick it up and bag it       what else

[little blue]

thats awful - at least on the ground there's a chance of nature dealing with it... in a bag in a tree it could hang there for all eternity  (bleugh!!)

[knightquest]

having to pick it up and bag it       what else

Don't know what else. Can't see why they should protest.........Everyone should clean up after their dogs. End of.

Ian