blackcob
🖖
Remember I posted a while back about the GIANT great dane I nearly ran over? Well, today for the 4th time I met him again. This time he wasn't in the middle of the busy country road but galloping in circles around a pair of walkers in the car park - the woman was terrified, the bloke trying to stand in front of her to protect her, the dog thinking it was great fun to run round and round making her shriek.
I call him over and for my trouble he goes careering into my car like Bambi on ice, covering the car in mud and scratches and then doing the same to me - I have scratches on both arms, mud on every item of clothing I had on and was nearly knocked off my feet for my troubles. He is not an aggressive dog in the slightest; just very young, no training whatsoever and the size of a pony.
His tag only has the vet's number on it - useful, when the vet is four miles away.
Obviously they cannot give me his owner's name or address but call her directly. In the meantime, I am left standing in a car park by a busy road holding this bloody lunging horse of a dog (luckily I had a lead in the car). The two walkers hang around with me which was lovely of them, the bloke is also covered in mud and pawprints, the scared girlfriend on the other side of the car park wondering WTF is going on.
Owner turns up 15 minutes later - completely unrepentent, breezy, barely a thank you. I point out that this is the 4th time I've done this (two of the previous four I actually carted him back to the vet, there being no address on his tag, at great inconvenience). She says that the postman left the gate open, walkers always leave the gate open, he climbs the fence. I blow my top a bit
o) and point out that he should not be out unsupervised, that I've seen him come within millimetres of causing a serious road accident on more than one occasion. He can open doors, she says. Lock them, I say. I do, she says. So why do I constantly find him out on the road? "I'm on my own, I try to watch him, I can't train him, he won't come back." I hand her the business card of our trainer, tell her to build a proper kennel and run, bite my tongue and get back in the car to strains of 'I'm on my own, I have to leave him outside, I can't stop him running away'.
ARGH. If it had been a nice shiny new Merc he'd scratched today, a pensioner he'd blundered in to and sent flying, if he'd run down the road a couple of seconds earlier and killed himself and the driver of the car... why can she not take this seriously?!
I call him over and for my trouble he goes careering into my car like Bambi on ice, covering the car in mud and scratches and then doing the same to me - I have scratches on both arms, mud on every item of clothing I had on and was nearly knocked off my feet for my troubles. He is not an aggressive dog in the slightest; just very young, no training whatsoever and the size of a pony.
His tag only has the vet's number on it - useful, when the vet is four miles away.
Obviously they cannot give me his owner's name or address but call her directly. In the meantime, I am left standing in a car park by a busy road holding this bloody lunging horse of a dog (luckily I had a lead in the car). The two walkers hang around with me which was lovely of them, the bloke is also covered in mud and pawprints, the scared girlfriend on the other side of the car park wondering WTF is going on.Owner turns up 15 minutes later - completely unrepentent, breezy, barely a thank you. I point out that this is the 4th time I've done this (two of the previous four I actually carted him back to the vet, there being no address on his tag, at great inconvenience). She says that the postman left the gate open, walkers always leave the gate open, he climbs the fence. I blow my top a bit
o) and point out that he should not be out unsupervised, that I've seen him come within millimetres of causing a serious road accident on more than one occasion. He can open doors, she says. Lock them, I say. I do, she says. So why do I constantly find him out on the road? "I'm on my own, I try to watch him, I can't train him, he won't come back." I hand her the business card of our trainer, tell her to build a proper kennel and run, bite my tongue and get back in the car to strains of 'I'm on my own, I have to leave him outside, I can't stop him running away'.ARGH. If it had been a nice shiny new Merc he'd scratched today, a pensioner he'd blundered in to and sent flying, if he'd run down the road a couple of seconds earlier and killed himself and the driver of the car... why can she not take this seriously?!
) and she asked how I'd trained them - I'm certainly not going to hold my breath but our trainers could do a world of good with that dog, he's bright and amenable. Such a shame. He will end up dead under a car one of these days, probably seriously injuring someone else in the process. He had lots of old cuts on his legs too, some sore and cracked where he'd been licking them. He was eight months old last time I picked him up, I remember the vet telling me, so he's less than a year old still. 
