Irresponsible Owners

To be clear, I don't have an issue with dog coats, I was amused by the distinct difference between dogs in the immediate vicinity around me where only long dogs and clipped dogs have coats on (one of which of these used to be mine), and the posh market town up the road where there was a brand new shiny looking coat on every.single.dog.

I have a veritable collection of coats stashed away in a drawer because my westie is no longer here, they are mostly slightly faded with distinct signs of wear.
 
CorvusCorax said:
I trained today (and had snowballs thrown at me) but I do put my dog in a coat or jumper for the wet, rather than the cold. Mainly because I can't be bothered drying a whole dog and I won't put a dog away/to bed wet.
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Top dog-life hack - Short-haired dog with an adversion to water. You are welcome 😉
 
I’ll admit that the hooligan has equidry coats, a wax Barbour coat & equafleeces. (Sensible “proper” coats at least!) Their main purpose when it isn’t pissing it down is the keep his belly & chest clean(er) when he goes tramping through mud on an almost daily basis. (He’s rather close to the ground and mud is attracted like a magnet) He does also get clipped quite short to aid with mud control (he gets matted otherwise, literally within hours of getting wet / mucky sometimes!) so then needs the warmth when it’s icy out, especially if he’s merrily jumping in & out of half frozen streams and playing in slushy puddles.

He is also a drama queen about rain (despite his obsession with all other forms of running water)regardless of temperature unless he has a waterproof on. With coat in place he’ll happily go for hours in horrible weather. (Although I sometimes want to disown the resulting swamp monster!)
 
blackcob said:
I assumed it was more an observation on the habits of the red trousery types inhabiting the naice market town (and why do Barbour dog coats fit so badly?!)
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Indeed. Although to deliver you your dog fashion update hot off the press, there were actually more puffa jackets with stand up collars than Barbours on the dogs yesterday.
 
Titchy Reindeer said:
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!
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Update on the dog in the bathroom situation.

I got a call from his owner who was 3 hours drive away at the time. She said the dog had a cat flap into the garage, where he had a sofa to lie on and she didn't know how he got out of the garden. She asked if I could hang on to him a bit longer. Anyway, her mother and daughter picked up J (I asked his name) around 5pm yesterday evening. I told them that he was out on New Years Day as well (my parents had to stop him being run over by their leaving guests) and they said strange, they were home that day. They obviously hadn't noticed the dog had gone AWOL. I also told them that he seemed to like throwing himself at moving cars. They said they knew, he likes to chase cars.

J was back at my parents this morning! They followed him home and saw someone closing the door, so assume he has been locked back in. But poor J is going to be run over one day if they can't keep him in, with his propensity to chasing cars.

Mum is uncharacteristically worked up about it. Her and J seem rather attached to each other for the little interaction they've had (and mum isn't a dog person). She's fuming at the owner for leaving him alone at home for what appears to be several days, not caring about him escaping and sending family members round to pick him up so I couldn't give her an earhole full. Mum's muttering on about "should be prosecuted for animal neglect". While she's not entirely wrong, it's never going to happen here, and if it did, someone would have prosecute a good half of the village, including some counselors.
 
My Whippet and Lurcher actually do pretty well in the cold. Coats only go on if the weather drops below zero. Or if its pissing down.

They do lots of blatting about or if on lead, we stomp pretty quickly so everyone warms up.

The GSD x BC appears to not notice the cold and would still swim very willingly, if allowed to do so.
 
Titchy Reindeer said:
Update on the dog in the bathroom situation.

I got a call from his owner who was 3 hours drive away at the time. She said the dog had a cat flap into the garage, where he had a sofa to lie on and she didn't know how he got out of the garden. She asked if I could hang on to him a bit longer. Anyway, her mother and daughter picked up J (I asked his name) around 5pm yesterday evening. I told them that he was out on New Years Day as well (my parents had to stop him being run over by their leaving guests) and they said strange, they were home that day. They obviously hadn't noticed the dog had gone AWOL. I also told them that he seemed to like throwing himself at moving cars. They said they knew, he likes to chase cars.

J was back at my parents this morning! They followed him home and saw someone closing the door, so assume he has been locked back in. But poor J is going to be run over one day if they can't keep him in, with his propensity to chasing cars.

Mum is uncharacteristically worked up about it. Her and J seem rather attached to each other for the little interaction they've had (and mum isn't a dog person). She's fuming at the owner for leaving him alone at home for what appears to be several days, not caring about him escaping and sending family members round to pick him up so I couldn't give her an earhole full. Mum's muttering on about "should be prosecuted for animal neglect". While she's not entirely wrong, it's never going to happen here, and if it did, someone would have prosecute a good half of the village, including some counselors.
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J out again this morning! Mum is not the only one to start getting very annoyed about this! He clearly didn't escape from the garden as the gate was wide open when I drove past to feed the horses, so someone clearly hasn't cared to make sure he was secure. Unfortunately, I couldn't catch him this morning as he was on a mission to explore outside the village, and I wasn't about to chase after him in the snow. If I do catch him again, his owner is in for for a proper earhole full. I hope she's more responsible with kids than with dogs!
 
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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We are incredibly lucky to have 300 acres of mixed woodland surrounded by miles of open fields straight out of our back gate. It's privately owned by someone living elsewhere in the country but managed by the Forestry Commission. There's no parking near the woods, so the only people who walk in there are locals, and they are few and far between. Mostly we don't see a soul out there, and the ones we do see we know anyway, at least by sight. Happy days.
 
SpeedyPony said:
Do you have dog wardens? I know over here if a dog is taken by the warden the owners have to pay a fine to get him back, which might sharpen them up?
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I wish! Over here, the maire is responsible for all stray animals and should either have a municipal pound or a contract with a commercial kennels to act as a pound. In which case, yes they would have to pay to get their dog back. In reality, I think the contract has lapsed with the private company and the maire is conflict averse and about as much use as a chocolate teapot (he got a talking to from the gendarmes over a constantly barking dog issue and basically told to man up and do his job). I'm just about to take J to the mairie as it has just opened and remind everyone of their responsibilities in no uncertain terms.
 
Titchy Pony said:
I wish! Over here, the maire is responsible for all stray animals and should either have a municipal pound or a contract with a commercial kennels to act as a pound. In which case, yes they would have to pay to get their dog back. In reality, I think the contract has lapsed with the private company and the maire is conflict averse and about as much use as a chocolate teapot (he got a talking to from the gendarmes over a constantly barking dog issue and basically told to man up and do his job). I'm just about to take J to the mairie as it has just opened and remind everyone of their responsibilities in no uncertain terms.
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Well J returned once again. I went with the mairie secretary who told owner that she was looking at collecting the dog from the pound next time. It appears she's already had to pay to get him back after one of his previous escapades. So owner has promised he will only go outside on a lead for now. We'll see how long it lasts. Owner says J does this about once a year (I'm pretty sure her years are shorter than mine - he was out this summer) and says it's probably because a female is in heat somewhere and he's not castrated.
 
Titchy Pony said:
Well J returned once again. I went with the mairie secretary who told owner that she was looking at collecting the dog from the pound next time. It appears she's already had to pay to get him back after one of his previous escapades. So owner has promised he will only go outside on a lead for now. We'll see how long it lasts. Owner says J does this about once a year (I'm pretty sure her years are shorter than mine - he was out this summer) and says it's probably because a female is in heat somewhere and he's not castrated.
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So get him done, but I don’t think that’s really the problem! Madame Institutrice sounds like an idiot. 🙁
 
Cinnamontoast said:
So get him done, but I don’t think that’s really the problem! Madame Institutrice sounds like an idiot. 🙁
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I hope she's better with kids than with dogs. I believe she is the type of owner the blanket "get them done" message from rescues and some vets is aimed at. It's probably too late to stop him being attracted to females now, but if he were done, they'd be no risk of more puppies to roam around.
 
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