It really all boils down to my opening gambit - no bad dogs, just bad owners!
I'm typing this with a lovely warm labrador lying on my feet. He is a working dog - working as a hot water bottle!
|
|
23-01-12, 05:03 PM
It really all boils down to my opening gambit - no bad dogs, just bad owners!
I'm typing this with a lovely warm labrador lying on my feet. He is a working dog - working as a hot water bottle!
23-01-12, 05:11 PM
......as long as he doesn't leak ;DOriginally Posted by Squashed_Fly
23-01-12, 06:13 PM
I have a lovely black lab, I know without doubt that he would never hurt anyone, he is the most loving soul I've ever met. Not a nasty bone in his body. But he has been bitten three times in the past, twice by Russells and once by a Heinz 57
This is him trying to fit through my mates cat flap :-/
This is what he is named after (posh name)
Vincent grey flash
Real name is Dave
23-01-12, 07:31 PM
I had a beautiful dog for 14 years before sadly having him put to sleep due to a liver tumor 3 years ago :'(. He was very excitable as a puppy as all dogs are but you do have to look at the owners and how they train/keep/treat their dogs to start with. Why do people get dogs in the first place, most of us it’s for working or companionship but some low life’s in society see it as a status symbol…that’s where the problem starts for a lot of these cases imo.
We all know some breeds are just more aggressive than others as DD said but if you let a dog run riot at home then it will assume it can do the exact same in public, mistreat the dog or train it to be more aggressive then it will do the same in public, let the dog jump up and ‘lick’ everyone it comes into contact with at home then it will do it in public.
Dog’s are hunters, pack animals, that instinct will never leave them so you have to watch them like a hawk, regardless of how much you ‘know’ your dog or trust it. IMO you can never trust a dog 100% even if you have given it the best training in the world because they are pack animals at heart & have the potential to revert to that at any given time. If you put most pet dogs in a public place with lots of noise & people dashing around then yes they are going to think 'great stuff it's play time'. Most dogs will have hopefully been trained to deal with this & are very well behaved in public but some dogs unfortunately will see it as an opportunity to revert back to what comes naturally to them & you then have the possibility of them attacking. Dogs get excited when they are around people, they love the attention.
I trained my dog Monty how to behave & he was a delight to have around children, adults and other dogs. Not once did I have an issue with his behavior but then again I would always insist on him being on a lead if we were walking in a public play area/park or where there were lots of children for the kid’s safety & that of my own peace of mind. I would exercise him off the lead in the countryside or dedicated dog areas. As a responsible dog owner I accepted that was my job.
Alfie grew up knowing Monty from birth & I never had a problem with him being aggressive towards him but I would NEVER have left Monty and Alfie alone in the same room esp. when he was a baby/toddler. I loved my dog to bits but I never trusted him 100%. 99.9% yes but that deep seated knowledge that he was a pack animal who hunts never left me. Alfie would play with him but he was taught not to tease him, pull his ears, throw things at him and poke him. You have to teach children dogs are not toys, they need to respect them.
There are 2 sides to every story and in this case, the dog attacked the poor child without warning so yes action needs to be taken against the dog and it’s owner but unless there are even more laws on how you can obtain a dog in the first place and how people train/treat dogs then you will never stop these things from happening.
I was bitten by an Alsatian when I was about 8. Playing in the play park minding my own business and this dog attacked me from behind, took a huge chunk out of my thigh with no warning. My dad found the owner & the dog was put to sleep, not because my dad hates dogs, quite the opposite but he said because the dog had attacked without warning & for no reason then he couldn’t live with the thought that it could do it again to another child and the injury could be far worse then I had received. The dog had been taken to the park by the owner’s son and apparently it was not very good with other people/children so why on earth was the son permitted to take the dog to a play park in the first place?
All too often I see children teasing dogs and then crying when the dog snaps at them as a warning. Also children who would just walk up to any dog and pat it without asking the owner if it was ok or the knowledge of what the dog was like. Dogs can be fiercely protective of their family and if they are approached by a stranger no matter if they are a child or adult that instinct kicks in. He was fine with Monty but he is wary of other dogs because he doesn’t know them. You see kids screaming and running away when they see a dog half a mile away, well if most dogs hear and see that child running then of course they are going to think it’s either a game and they want to play or that hunting instinct kicks in again. Responsible owners should be able to halt the dog before this happens or the dog will be so well trained that it ignores the child but that risk is there. I taught Alfie that ALL dogs can be dangerous and that he should never approach one without me or the owners there and even then to be cautious of it.
Dogs get a bad press when things like this happen & I do feel sorry for all of them & the victims. Most are loving, soppy family pets that never hurt a fly but then something like this happens & people call for blood, it can be very unfair because they are not all bad. It’s just far too easy to get a dog and far too easy for some people to treat them badly or train them to be aggressive because they think it makes them look hard…very sad really.
I'm a dog lover through and through, give me a dog over a cat any day! But don’t get me started on cats & the way they are allowed to **** all over my garden and the owners are not responsible for clearing it up! >
My boy Monty RIP
23-01-12, 08:03 PM
Just to clarify, the areas to which I referred to in my initial post are public places such as designated parks where children play; outside shopping malls (dogs are not allowed in most indoor malls anyway) and so on. I don’t think anyone is talking about open fields.
I’ve owned (not sure that’s the right term) four dogs and under no circumstances would I have taken any of them in to a public park unless on a lead. I have never had a problem in finding suitable open spaces to allow them to have a good run around. Perhaps I was over cautious, but despite the fact that my dogs were friendly and cuddly I could never be 100 per cent certain to how they would react in a noisy populated area.
As Chris rightly said, the vast majority of dog owners are responsible and to be honest, I don’t know what the answer is to bring the small minority of irresponsible ones in to line.
Rossio, I would suggest that one of the reasons many people choose to have a dog is probably for the same reason many of the hunting fraternity partake in their chosen pursuit – pleasure. Let’s not forget that there are thousands of lonely elderly people across the country who own dogs for companionship.
23-01-12, 08:22 PM
'I'm a dog lover through and through, give me a dog over a cat any day! But don’t get me started on cats & the way they are allowed to **** all over my garden and the owners are not responsible for clearing it up! >
Now thats another topic all together!!!!!! Totally agree, we spend half our lives clearing up cat poo from our garden...drives us mad and we don't even own a cat, only a share in a lovely, cute, cuddley, soft, doopy, lick you to death cavalier king charles spaniel, that frightens himself when he barks (which isn't very often!!) ;D
24-01-12, 03:05 AM
I understand your point but...... does it not irritate when you drive through town and see labradors 3 feet wide and spaniels without a spring pointers with nothing to point at etc? as has been mentioned dogs are pack animals and natural hunters, and when used as such in a controlled enviroment there is no getting away from the fact that that when they are working they are 100% focused on the task in hand wether it be finding and flushing or retrieving, mine know who the leader of the pack is....me, and thats key to a dog control,every whistle is responded to instantly and thats the way it should be, although some my not agree with shooting/hunting and thats fine i have no issue with that as i probably dont like certain things they do...like kareoke ;D but if you've never seen a dog working i urge you to try and see it its an absolute pleasure to watch and the joy on their faces when they bring you the first right through to the last bird of the day for me is what keeping dogs is about, the same goes for "jack" my huntaway when he has penned the sheep or got the cows in he loves it for him thats his purpose in life and im sure he wouldnt be happy if he never had the oportunity do it everyday,
Right lets start on the cat subject ;D
24-01-12, 02:09 PM
Sad fact of the matter is.
A child would be safer on its own in a room with my lab than with a lot of people out there in this crazy world.
Dogs are not the enemy.
Cats are
24-01-12, 02:32 PM
The cat subject has come up on here a few times before.
I dislike cats but I don't hate them. They are only doing what comes naturally to them.
I do however hate cat owners.
They are the most selfish people on the planet and have the strange need to own something but without the responsibilty.
I'm sure some of you are reading this and saying "not me, I'm responsible" yes you! It's just that you don't realise it. You get to play with it, have it sit on your lap and be all cute.
I'm the one who runs the mower through it's crap, gets woken up at 3am because you locked the catflap and has to see the birds i've watched hatch get ripped apart as they learn to fly.
You want something to cuddle, talk in a stupid voice to but not actually look after? Buy a doll!
Every so often one of the red tops runs a story about cats being poisoned in certain areas and people are baffled "why would someone do this? Who could be so cruel?"
The blame lies firmly with the owners.
So now we have gone full circle so to quote a wise man form Swindon "there are no bad 'cats', just bad owners.
Anyway, back to the dog thing.......
24-01-12, 06:23 PM
Dan, a hypothetical scenario for you to consider:
Just imagine that you fell head-over-heels for the girl of your dreams. You are lying next to her after consummating your relationship and she informs you that she owns a cat.
Would you tell her, ‘it was over’ because you don’t like her pussy?
:P;D
| « Previous Thread | Next Thread » |
