keeping dogs on leads

ester

ester

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Owners still can't manage it even when they are told to because their dog risks falling off a cliff :(. You'd think of all times they actually could just do so.
https://www.burnham-on-sea.com/news...fDuH9LF1zbGU_mqiAVwRlfX-ADW8QhOGljU2gjRYFchLs
Most years there is at least one of these incidents, obviously they usually try and do a bit of home abseiling to try and find said dog.

It looks like this so relatively narrow, but tidal enough that it is often just mud either side
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I remember a guy visiting the city where I used to live, walked his two dogs around the city walls off lead (remember...had never been there before) and one dog ran off one of the gates and fell a great height onto to road below. He then appealed to the public to help fund the vets bill for the two smashed to bits legs back together....
 
A terrier we once had decided to jump off a sea wall years ago. Thankfully she just ended up dangling from her lead and harness and was promptly retrieved! Many people do not seem to have much common sense unfortunately.
 
I was thinking about this only yesterday. I went to Ingleford Waterfalls. There’d been a lot of rain and the water was high and very fast flowing. I was amazed at how many dogs I saw off lead, mostly Spaniels, despite the sheer drops and narrow paths. Are people really that stupid to trust that their dog won’t slip? My dog was on a short lead and even then I worried about her safety.
 
I remember seeing lots of warning signs about this when doing coastal walks in Pembrokeshire... can’t believe people would be so stupid *oh wait yes I can 🤦🏻‍♀️

Even without the sheer drops off cliffs, there is livestock wandering about there on a lot of the coastal path areas, and you often don’t see the sheep/cows until the last minute as you come round a bluff of rock. But clearly a lot of people don’t give a toss about that either 😕
 
One of my past clients lost her collie when he ran off a cliff. He was 2 yrs old and had been walked on the top frequently all his life, he always from day one just walked along behind her unless she was throwing a ball, they were about 200 yards from the edge and he just turned away from the whole family and ran straight off the edge, no-one knows why, they were devastated.
 
there's a bridge in Scotland called Overtoun Bridge that dogs have jumped off. All sorts of nonsense spouted as to why they do it but its famous for it, so keep your dogs on a lead. I think there must be something in their vision which means that they don't have great depth perception maybe? or heights when at a height. I've done the Pembrokeshire coast (with dog on a lead) and when the rivers/burns are in spate the dogs are kept away.
 
In Cornwall some years ago a loose dog approached a walking group. One of them was afraid of dogs and ran. He slipped, fell off the cliff and died.
 
MotherOfChickens said:
there's a bridge in Scotland called Overtoun Bridge that dogs have jumped off. All sorts of nonsense spouted as to why they do it but its famous for it, so keep your dogs on a lead. I think there must be something in their vision which means that they don't have great depth perception maybe? or heights when at a height. I've done the Pembrokeshire coast (with dog on a lead) and when the rivers/burns are in spate the dogs are kept away.
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I think you are right about perception or at least what they see. We walked our BC loose over a causeway between 2 reservoirs, perfectly safe, no other dogs around. There were pine needles on the water. Next thing dog had gone into the reservoir. This was not a dog that jumped into water on an outing, he just didn't seem to have any idea that it was not solid and wandered over the edge of the causeway into the water.
 
paddy555 said:
I think you are right about perception or at least what they see. We walked our BC loose over a causeway between 2 reservoirs, perfectly safe, no other dogs around. There were pine needles on the water. Next thing dog had gone into the reservoir. This was not a dog that jumped into water on an outing, he just didn't seem to have any idea that it was not solid and wandered over the edge of the causeway into the water.
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My collie ran straight off a jetty once-it wasn't that high but the shock in his face :D, he wasn't a dog that did swimming lol, that pond had some duck weed on it so maybe its a colour thing as well.
 
MotherOfChickens said:
My collie ran straight off a jetty once-it wasn't that high but the shock in his face :D, he wasn't a dog that did swimming lol, that pond had some duck weed on it so maybe its a colour thing as well.
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in our case it was the look on OH's face, he most certainly doesn't do swimming. :eek:
it is in fact quite difficult to persuade a dog to swim in a reservoir of pine needles to a point where you can drag it out. Should have had him on a lead.
 
I remember being told years ago that dogs don't judge depth perception very well, which is why it is always wise to keep them on lead around cliffs etc. A friend lives near the coast in Cornwall and it is frightening how many dogs go off cliffs, putting coastguard teams at risk to try and rescue them or, sadly, recover the bodies.
 
Years ago we were walking our dogs along a beach in Cornwall.... Suddenly we noticed one of them was missing. We looked around... she'd been there just a minute ago, we looked in the sea in case she'd gone swimming, looked all over the beach. . Then I looked up.... and there she was at the top of the cliff, wagging her tail at me!
I shouted 'no' and pointed to the right to the entrance of the beach, then ran hell for leather back down to where we had walked on about half a mile away. I don't know if she understood or just wasn't feeling suicidal but she met me at the car park.
 
There was an American writer who made a big deal about never putting his border collies on lead. They were "working sheepdogs" like that made them super special or something. He walked those dogs off lead in the middle of Manhattan. One was flighty as all get out. I still don't understand how she didn't end up flattened by traffic.
 
Black lab I had as a child fell off a cliff he was very lucky he landed in a patch of whin bushes Trouble was it was a small cove only accessible from the sea. Dad paid a fisherman to take his boat round to pick him up. He slipped his collar and ran on quite a few occasions this was one of them. He also made us laugh when he ran across some rocks and fell into a deep rockpool he hated getting wet
 
Walking the boys behind my mother in law's house in Nottingham, there's a massive stone/monument thing (Hemlock Stone) and several bluffs. We turned to look for Jake, he was 15 feet up. The OH called him, expecting him to go back down but he just leapt forward. Unbelievably, he was fine.
 
We've just put out a fairly innocent message about taking extra care with dogs in a certain area following a spate of adder bite cases... not even to specifically keep them on a lead, though that might be a sensible precaution. Aaaaand lo, the comments have kicked off. :p
 
Cinnamontoast said:
Walking the boys behind my mother in law's house in Nottingham, there's a massive stone/monument thing (Hemlock Stone) and several bluffs. We turned to look for Jake, he was 15 feet up. The OH called him, expecting him to go back down but he just leapt forward. Unbelievably, he was fine.
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When the Rotters were about 4/5 months old, I was walking them in the wood, they followed a path up a banking, rather than following me along the track, still less then 10 ft away from me, I called them back, one retraced her steps, the other launched herself off the 4 ft wall and landed at my feet. My heart was in my mouth, thinking about cruciate ligaments etc. She was absolutely fine! That dog loved to jump off things for most of her life, round hay bales in the yard, walls, she didn't care, She also liked to make the hay bales rock and frighten her sister:)
 
blackcob said:
We've just put out a fairly innocent message about taking extra care with dogs in a certain area following a spate of adder bite cases... not even to specifically keep them on a lead, though that might be a sensible precaution. Aaaaand lo, the comments have kicked off. :p
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We live near to a 40mph road which is mostly quiet, as it only leads to a hamlet, the number of people who walk their dogs without a lead, even though there is no pavement/walkable verge in absolutely unbelievable!
 
My childhood collie once chased a cat up a fire escape at the nursing home in the middle of the local park. I was about 13 or 14 and was delivering the paper to said nursing home as part of my round. She was off lead because we were in the park! There was a flat roofed, single story, section next to the fire escape with a little parapet around it. The cat jumped off the roof over the parapet and the collie followed. She landed on the tarmac and fell over but was up and after the damn cat again in seconds although she actually recalled when I got over the shock enough to call her again! I'm just glad the cat decided to jump of the single story section and not head any higher. It was the kind of experience that instils a healthy dose of caution into the teenage mind.
 
When little Dee was a puppy and we lived in a first floor flat, she managed to wiggle through the bars of the balcony and jump down (fortunately onto a lawned communal area) to follow me when I made the mistake of thinking I could just leave her with my flatmate while I popped to the shops. Was a proper heart in mouth moment as she crashed down to the ground, but fortunately she was fine (and has never done anything similar since). Was a good lesson about dogs on balconies.
 
I don't know if it's still the case, but Guide Dogs used to regularly run off cliffs when they had their harnesses removed and were 'off duty'. Really sad.
 
bonny said:
Regularly ? Are you sure ?
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Seems like a spectacularly daft thing to do. I've never heard of it TBH.
Oldie one of my old GSDs was able to jump cattle grids in one go, even when old and fat. I didn't train it, she just did it one day, I was shocked! I use stuff like that to proof environmental soundness, I was forever running my older dog over strange surfaces when he was a puppy.
 
oldie48 said:
The other thing that worries me is cattle grids!
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when I was a kid we had Sally, a medium sized mongrel, (we used to call them mongrels in those days) around 11 yo. She tried to jump or at least get over a cattle grid and fell onto it and her paws into it which meant her belly got hit on the grid. She then get a large tumour where she had landed on it. It may have been nothing to do with the grid but we always wondered. The tumour was removed and she went on for another 4 years.
 
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