Irresponsible and Responsible Dog Owners
I want to comment on responsible dog stewardship. I was training with a client in a local park and a young girl with a German Shepherd Dog was acting very irresponsible.
This careless dog handling eventually led to social strife and a confrontation. The girl was with friends and did not watch or control her dog well. When the dog saw my small group it came running over. The loose dog was a little intimidating in that I locked onto the dog I was training with a stare and made a beeline straight to us.
If I did not know dogs I may have interpreted the running over as an attack charge, or at least a bluff charge. But to me it looked like a friendly running over to play charge. While the dog was disruptive and may have stresses the owner/handler I was working with, it was very friendly. I simply picked up the leash and returned the dog to its owner.
The annoying thing is, not five minutes later the dog came running up to us again. Finally the girl semi secured her dog but not long after this the dog charged up to a young child. One of the adults accompanying the child kicked at the dog and then things got interesting. One of the females in the child’s group got very aggressive and quite out of hand. She displayed very primitive behavior and the dog owner then became a bit defensive too. Fortunately the dog’s owner had a group of people with her and the aggressive girl had friend to stop her from committing an assault. After much posturing and ritualized verbal aggression (barking) the two groups separated.
The point is this whole altercation could have been avoided if the dog owner had been more responsible and secured the dog after the first incident with my group. I do not think there was a threat from this dog running out of control but other people did not read it that way. For many people any off leash dog running at them is a threat, especially fighting and protection dog breeds.
All of us with dogs must be considerate of other people who do not feel comfortable being around dogs. It‘s every dog owners responsibility to manage their dog’s behavior. Each and every one of us who own a dog can either promote social harmony or contribute to social conflict. We should not let our fun be someone else’s discomfort or worse, terror.
If dogs are not perceived as a problem or threat they will be given more and more privileges, and so too will their owners. The better dog owners behave the more freedom dogs will have.
Andrew Ledford
101-Dog-Training-Tips.com