Keep Your F**cking Dog On A Leash!!!!!

I am so unbelievably tired of people in public with their dogs off leash.

Seriously.

What the hell is wrong with them? Don’t they know there are cars, squirrels, cats, and MY F**KING DOGS out there!?!?!?

Here’s where this rant is coming from.

photo-1

That’s my face. Got one on the back of my leg, and my arm…… But that one was the good one.

I took my dogs out for their morning exercise, which today happened to be pulling a scooter. And as we round the round the first corner, we see a lady walking 3 dogs of her own. No Problem. I’ve never seen her or her dogs before, so we head out in the other direction.

This is a necessary part of having dogs that react poorly to aggression. I can have them in a down next to a strange dog if that dog is controlled. But, if that dog is acting sketchy……. They’ll react. So, as I’m trying to set them up for success, I avoid situations, that I’m not sure they have a good chance of doing well.

That said, I took my dogs and left. Or at least I tried to. That’s when I heard “No! Come back here!”. I look over my shoulder and see the dogs coming at us….Yep…… Off leash.

Her dogs proceeded to run in a circle snapping at my dogs. Which of course gets them wired as hell. Now because they’re on a tow line in harnesses, they proceed to get completely tangled. Which in the presence of the other dogs instigating a fight, causes them to redirect on each other.

Now, this took about two seconds to happen. My dogs are fighting while tied together. Great. I have to get in end try to separate them, which is VERY difficult to do, with three dogs fighting tied together and three other dogs, nipping and running around our mess.

So….. I catch a bite from one of mine, as I’m trying to untangle them. It wasn’t re-direction. He just didn’t know who he was biting. I was laying on top of him, and trying to use my hands to untangle his line, and ward of the dogs, who were biting at him from any exposed parts.  This is when I got the bites on the backs of my legs and arms from the loose dogs. My dog had already been hurt and was just biting anything he could. He got a grip on my face, but he outed on command. I just don’t think he knew it was me. This isn’t unheard of in trying to break up multi-dog fights.

Now, to give you the real picture… As this debacle is occurring, the lady is standing their WATCHING. And saying shit like, “Are, you OK?”, “You need help?”. And I’m just yelling at her to get her dogs and get the hell away from me. She doesn’t.

I have to wait for people to literally pull over on the side of the road, and shoo the other dogs away. That gave me the drop in intensity I needed to separate my dogs.

The people that pulled over were very cool. Partly because they could see the other lady/dogs had caused it. And, partly because they see me every day, as we run, walk, and pull dogs. They know we are good people, and handle our dogs with great care and responsibility.

None of them were scared of our dogs. And these, essentially, strangers all helped me out. One couple took one of the more injured dogs, and drove them back to my house. I walked the two less injured dogs back to the house. This happened about two blocks from my home, BTW. One guy, walked my scooter back with us. And, still another, gathered up my wool cap, glasses, and gloves that had come off in the scuffle.

To those people, I can say I am tremendously grateful for their courage, help, and understanding. I really don’t know what I would’ve done if they hadn’t run the other dogs off.

Anyway…… Things to take from this:

1. LEASH YOUR F**KING DOGS!!!!

2. Be hyper aware that there are idiots with ill behaved off leashed dogs literally everywhere. Your vigilance can’t be limited to dog parks and other “typical” off leash areas. This can happen literally outside your door.  And even though we’ve run these same exact streets for about 10 years, you can’t get complacent. This person may be visiting, or god forbid have moved here. No assumptions!

3.  Although pack walks are super cool……. This is the downside. I have to treat my walks with my own dogs, with the same kind of hyper cautiousness that I take with other peoples dogs. No more group walks. At least until we get enough acreage to do it without leaving our “compound”.

4. Even though my first response to this is to just solidify the fact that I hate people…… It actually gave me a few reasons to think that there may be a few good ones left after all.