Irresponsible Owners

Jenko109 said:
I am lucky to live a 15 minute drive from the New Forest.

I have one walk that I can walk at pretty much anytime of day and almost never see anyone. It's delightful.

The rest of my walks are also done on the forest, but before sunrise and with a head torch.

I appreciate how lucky I am.
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I take a torch, but don’t use it. Scary shadows, same when I used to ride in the dark 😂
 
I find that our local woods are increasingly full of fair weather walkers. It used to be somewhere that everyone had an unspoken understanding about ie off lead sociable dogs. I’ve met a few dogs in the past year that were off lead but not friendly.

I’m aware of how fortunate we are to have exceptionally even tempered/submissive dogs, although that obviously has its challenges too, they absolutely will not stand up for themselves. Fortunately, their recall is (mostly!) excellent and we head potential trouble off at the pass, plus we recognise problem dogs and direct ours elsewhere.

I know what it’s like to have a very reactive dog and kudos to anyone who has to deal with that, a dog needs exercise/stimulation and not offering this makes it worse.
 
blackcob said:
I suspect my poor dog spent more time in a down than upright or walking today. She did a great job and people were very cheerful and respectful but my god where are all these springer spaniels the rest of the year.
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I'd rather walk a springer bare foot in the snow than share a house with an unwalked springer, these owners must be lunatics.
 
That reminds me of my first bf when I was a teenager. I was about 16.

They had a Springer Spaniel called Cassie.

Poor dog used to live in a room under the stairs. They wouldn't let her out because she was too hectic in the house.

She did get walked each day for one short walk. That poor dog must have been so desperately miserable stuck in that room 23 hours a day, going mad with pent up energy.

I look back and wish I had said or done something.
 
Jenko109 said:
That reminds me of my first bf when I was a teenager. I was about 16.

They had a Springer Spaniel called Cassie.

Poor dog used to live in a room under the stairs. They wouldn't let her out because she was too hectic in the house.

She did get walked each day for one short walk. That poor dog must have been so desperately miserable stuck in that room 23 hours a day, going mad with pent up energy.

I look back and wish I had said or done something.
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I've met a couple of people like that and I just cannot fathom why you would have a dog in these circumstances. Even more baffling is the people who keep horses, with all the expense and whatever and yet spend barely 5 mins with them either end of the day for years on end. People are weird.
 
Jenko109 said:
That reminds me of my first bf when I was a teenager. I was about 16.

They had a Springer Spaniel called Cassie.

Poor dog used to live in a room under the stairs. They wouldn't let her out because she was too hectic in the house.

She did get walked each day for one short walk. That poor dog must have been so desperately miserable stuck in that room 23 hours a day, going mad with pent up energy.

I look back and wish I had said or done something.
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A very similar situation to where our springer came from. They loved him undoubtedly but had no idea what owning a springer involved, he spent half his life stuck in a crate as they couldn’t cope with him and occasionally attempted to walk him but with zero recall and pulling like a train on the lead not very successfully.

He now lives with us on a small holding and spends 6-8 hours running around outside most days, I have no idea how he survived mentally before.

Although if anyone thinks it’s a good idea to take on a 14 month old springer ‘teenager’ with absolutely zero training…. 100% would not recommend 🤣 He is (mostly) a delight 2 years on though! 😍
 
Weird: I'm on the periphery of a fast growing town. One footpath is a no go now as tarmced over and a cycle/footpath. Never used to see anyone on that. Now full of would be Tour de France riders.

Other footpaths within walking distance I usually don't see anyone on. No idea why.

No way would I go to any of the parks though!!

Driving to elsewhere on the hills doesn't necessarily guarantee a quieter walk. I have had 2 horrid encounters at roughly 11.00am on a weekday during term time!!
 
KikiDee said:
A very similar situation to where our springer came from. They loved him undoubtedly but had no idea what owning a springer involved, he spent half his life stuck in a crate as they couldn’t cope with him and occasionally attempted to walk him but with zero recall and pulling like a train on the lead not very successfully.

He now lives with us on a small holding and spends 6-8 hours running around outside most days, I have no idea how he survived mentally before.

Although if anyone thinks it’s a good idea to take on a 14 month old springer ‘teenager’ with absolutely zero training…. 100% would not recommend 🤣 He is (mostly) a delight 2 years on though! 😍
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Been there got the tshirt 😂 My springer cross was basically ignored/ crated for the first year of her life. Also a delight now aged 4. First dog too but I wouldn't be convinced not to have her 😂
 
There's currently an extra dog in my downstairs bathroom.

He's a T lookalike, but slightly bigger. I called round to say hi to my parents and he was sat on their doorstep (before trying to throw himself under my car wheels). He'd been there since around 9 am (11am when I got there), it's -4°C and he was shaking. My mum had already tried taking him home and phoned me to ask what to do (I was out with the horses). We know where he lives, but not his owners. Mum and I took the dog around again, just in case. No answer.

So I called the Maire who tried calling the owner but got no answer. The poor Maire sounded a little overwhelmed, apparently dealing with some elderly inhabitants' broken heating, so asked me to hang on to the dog for a while. So here I am, with a stray dog in my bathroom for the second time. I think I'm going to start charging...

This isn't the first time this dog has been out. Dad has taken him to the mairie on a piece of string before. Some friends of mine have also found him before (and called me to see if I knew him and his owners - strange how that happens a lot). I have seen him out earlier this week and it's the second or third time he's been round to Mum and Dad's this week. I suspect his owners have gone away somewhere and left him in the garden, possibly with some calling round once a day to check on him.

Oh, and the best bit? His owner is the local primary school teacher! I despair!
 
Braved a walk with the reactive collie last night. A group of people with 2 big dogs stood around on the path ahead of me so I clip dog on lead and walk off the path and into the field a bit to avoid them. Still no attempt to recall the dogs. One comes bounding over to us, so I have to put myself between it and collie and tell it firmly to back off, owner cheerily shouts over “oh she’s not aggressive!”, I reply through gritted teeth “mine is sorry! That’s why he’s on a lead!” Owner replies “oh no problem!” …. still no attempt to recall dog.

They are stood around blocking the gateway with the other dog, so I now have to navigate squeezing past them with snarling collie (he would normally be fine passing another dog as long as they weren’t in his face but was upset at being charged by the off lead dog).

What are they doing throughout all this? Crouched on the floor with their phones getting pictures of the dogs ‘playing in the snow’….. 🤦‍♀️

It’s sleet and raining next week so they’ll all bugger off then!
 
Tiddlypom said:
There are dickheads everywhere and at all times of the day.

How smug to say just go where there aren’t any.
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But shes right. I can walk round near where I live and play dodge the idiot, or i can chuck them in the car drive between 5 and 30mins and see almost no one. I can tell you exactly where everyone walks the problem dogs round here, the tow path, the sports field and any park. i've got an OS maps app and find a footpath and off we go. I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen another person never mind a dog once I get around a mile out.
 
Jenko109 said:
I imagine this is all massively dependent on where you are in the country.

Is it really possible to find a barren walk within 30 minutes, regardless of where your starting point is?

I'm not so sure.
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If I choose the time, the day, I have a special beach, followed by driving up a very special road, a single track road, where we would be very unlucky to see another human….
All just within your 30 miles, but then I do live in a most beautiful and sparsely populated part of the United Kingdom, and yes I do know how lucky I am ❤️
 
ArklePigInBlanket said:
I'd rather walk a springer bare foot in the snow than share a house with an unwalked springer, these owners must be lunatics.
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One of my Year 9s spied my new calendar, obviously mostly the boys and says he has a bitch like G. Apparently she’s ’mad’. I told him mine get 3 walks a day, just about to go out now. They don’t need to go miles, they just need the stimulation and they have a routine. They have the dog walker the next 2 days, can’t be helped, so only one walk til 4pm. They will be lively!
 
Jenko109 said:
I imagine this is all massively dependent on where you are in the country.

Is it really possible to find a barren walk within 30 minutes, regardless of where your starting point is?

I'm not so sure.
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Despite being within the M25, we have massive woods within 4 miles, or the 3 local parks, 2 of which have woody sections. It’s yet another of my concerns for the future: I need somewhere to drive to quickly for safe off lead walks. I know some dogs don’t go off lead, but mine are used to it.
 
I do have a much better hit rate with that approach but still encounter idiots. If anyone recalls the charging labradoodle I posted about just before Christmas, that was in a place where I can count on one hand the number of other people I've ever seen in there, in 10+ years of walking it. We pass people on the way to and from it but they're all heading out on the shorter circular walks that start and finish in town, or to the park.

Same for the Christmas day example, I had permission to be there but people had let themselves into an adjacent field that has no right of way through it. Heck, you still get it on completely private land - my mum hadn't been in her current place long when she looked out of the window and saw a bloke walking his dog in one of the paddocks, having climbed a locked gate with a 'private - keep out' sign on it, and who was completely unrepentant and actually quite rude when (politely) challenged.

And again, this is coming from a position of relative privilege, many (most?) people don't have that many options.

Unexpectedly, the most valuable location to us when we reached a certain point in dog reactivity training was a large park in a not very salubrious town. If you'd told me before that point I'd be driving 20 minutes each way twice a week to walk there I'd have thought you mad, but it turned out to be an absolute gem during that period. I don't recall ever having had a bad experience there, or at least one of any significance, but could easily see 20+ beautifully controlled dogs at a time (and thus fill the bucket with 20+ rewarded encounters in quick succession). OH's theory about this location was that if you allowed your dog to be dickhead to others you'd get your head bashed in, hence the lack of dickheadedness...
 
blackcob said:
I do have a much better hit rate with that approach but still encounter idiots. If anyone recalls the charging labradoodle I posted about just before Christmas, that was in a place where I can count on one hand the number of other people I've ever seen in there, in 10+ years of walking it. We pass people on the way to and from it but they're all heading out on the shorter circular walks that start and finish in town, or to the park.

Same for the Christmas day example, I had permission to be there but people had let themselves into an adjacent field that has no right of way through it. Heck, you still get it on completely private land - my mum hadn't been in her current place long when she looked out of the window and saw a bloke walking his dog in one of the paddocks, having climbed a locked gate with a 'private - keep out' sign on it, and who was completely unrepentant and actually quite rude when (politely) challenged.

And again, this is coming from a position of relative privilege, many (most?) people don't have that many options.

Unexpectedly, the most valuable location to us when we reached a certain point in dog reactivity training was a large park in a not very salubrious town. If you'd told me before that point I'd be driving 20 minutes each way twice a week to walk there I'd have thought you mad, but it turned out to be an absolute gem during that period. I don't recall ever having had a bad experience there, or at least one of any significance, but could easily see 20+ beautifully controlled dogs at a time (and thus fill the bucket with 20+ rewarded encounters in quick succession). OH's theory about this location was that if you allowed your dog to be dickhead to others you'd get your head bashed in, hence the lack of dickheadedness...
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I suspect I know the location you mean and I think your OH is probably right.:p
 
We are relatively out in the sticks but good dog walks are limited here. We have the more rural footpaths but lots of livestock so not much opportunity to let them off lead, the livestock free walks are populated by d*ckhead off lead dogs or the woods where you have to dodge mountain bikers every 5 minutes.
 
I was out with Bandit yesterday. We met a bloke with 2 massive, fluffy German Sheps. I put Bandit on a lead and he let his dogs bowl on up to us while shouting they're friendly they just want to play. Now Bandit isn't small but they were much bigger than him and very bouncy and quite rough and to be honest they didnt sound that friendly. When he realised I wasn't going to let Bandit off he got quite nasty with his they're friendly they just want to play spiel. I replied back so is Bandit but he's got a Lumbarsacral disease and doesnt need big dogs jumping all over his back. He put them on their leads and his reply - well i didnt know that did i? My reply Why would you? I've never met you before in my life but surely if you see someone put their dog on a lead you put yours on a lead, isn't that just common courtesy?

Long story short we had an argument, i won, he stropped off and no doubt it ruined both our day.
 
How do you know you're in the well-to-do market town on a slightly frosty day? When you realise that out of the 20-30 dogs you've seen, your dog is the only one without a coat on. 💁

Also had a slight wry smile at the owner of a small off-lead dog, some way in front of them, that came over to say hello to Dagon who was on lead. As the dog reached Dagon and they sniffed each other, the owner shouted out (with no associated attempt to get over to his dog), "oh, he's a bit snappy!" Well sweetie, there's not much we can do about that now is there 🙄. Anyway, it didn't snap, the two dogs had an amicable and brief encounter without any drama at all, but why on earth would you let your small dog who can be a bit snappy merrily potter up to an on-lead dog three times it's size?
 
blackcob said:
They must not really like the small dog and want to be rid of it. 😏

It's 'feels like' -4 here and nothing has dropped off with frostbite yet, for lack of a coat. I also did some training in the snow today which would have many clutching their pearls.
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I have to confess Zig wore a coat on his walk today , snow and ice and he is very low to the ground ! He wears a fleece at winter shows to keep his muscles warm .
I was man trailing this morning with Zenya in a blizzard , which wasn’t forecast 😏
 
blackcob said:
They must not really like the small dog and want to be rid of it. 😏

It's 'feels like' -4 here and nothing has dropped off with frostbite yet, for lack of a coat. I also did some training in the snow today which would have many clutching their pearls.
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I always said I didn't want dogs that need coats. Unfortunately, T seems to really feel the cold and his old owner has provided several. To be fair to him, we are in the process of getting rid of his layer of blubber.

The two big dogs are fine and more prone to getting too hot than cold.
 
MurphysMinder said:
I have to confess Zig wore a coat on his walk today , snow and ice and he is very low to the ground ! He wears a fleece at winter shows to keep his muscles warm .
I was man trailing this morning with Zenya in a blizzard , which wasn’t forecast 😏
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Daisy has been wearing a coat for weeks. She's small, has a fairly close haircut and is feeling the colder weather in her more mature years. She does, sadly, draw the line at wearing Christmas jumpers 😂

I see no reason for anyone to sneer at an owner wanting to keep their dog warm 🥴
 
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I'm an irresponsible owner,

D dog only gets a coat chucked on if we have to be out in hammering rain! DH popped a light fleece vest on her yesterday as she was out in the garden for an hour or so whilst he was in the garage.

I got a bit of a rollicking this afternoon when out marching along. Apparently Shih Tzu's should all wear coats or jumpers.... or both, when its so cold. I obligingly smiled and nodded.... then asked why.
They are really indoor dogs was the answer and don't like the cold, nor enjoy walking far..
I pointed out that D is 2 yrs old, in perfect fettle and we had another 2kms to do to get back to the car., walking briskly kept us both warm. As I left, I suggested she didn't give unwarranted advice when she clearly hadn't a clue!

I have a good amount of coats that her predecessor had - who was old and didn't go far at the yard, so needed extra layers.
 
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