off leash - mini rant

[vemureaux]

Originally Posted by ksheez3

Well, I agree that dogs shouldn't run up to people or other dogs without being welcomed but (as others have noted) having the dog on a leash doesn't necessarilly prevent untrained dogs from pulling their own owners up to the leashed dog. That being said, I don't understand what the problem is with my dog being off leash out on one of the local trails if he is under control.

( also suspect that the posters who keep talking about the off leash dogs interferring with their training don't have their dogs anywhere near as trained as they think that they do.)

If the offleash dog was truly under control, then that's fine. It wouldn't be rushing up to me or my dog. But usually that's not the case with unleashed dogs I, and many others, have encountered. That's why I emphasize that leashed or unleashed, a dog should be under control and not rushing up to people. Despite what their owners may think, it's not cute friendly behavior. That's just rude uncontrolled behavior, period. Also, your snarky comment can be said of owners who let their dogs off-leash as well. That's why owners of many well-trained dogs still don't let their dogs off-leash in public areas. You just never know what distraction (a squirrel? a dog in heat?) might be too much for your dog, however well-trained, to resist.

As the poster who stated that having dogs rush up to us interferes with our training, the key point is that I'M TRAINING MY DOG whereas these other folks are just letting their dogs be rude and unmannerly whether on or off leash.

In my personal defence, at 7 months of age, my pup's obedience is not perfect (though very good for her age), and there are distractions that are very hard for her to withstand (ideally she would just sit there and ignore completely a dog that's running or pulling towards us unless I cue her otherwise--we're working towards that but she's still a baby and you have to have realistic expectation). Hence I take the necessary precautions to keep her under control (tell the owner to please not approach, use a no-pull harness for better control in case she does pull, walk away from the distraction if I notice ahead of time, cue her behind me away from the other dog, etc) and know how to regain her attention when she's lost her focus. I set her up for success (as any good trainer would do), and having a dog run up to us is incredibly disruptive for her training. If you're familiar with APDT rally/ CDSP obedience or therapy dog work, you would know that there's intensive behavioral and obedience training involved. I can't speak for others' dedication to their dog training, but for those like myself who do take it seriously, these uncontrolled dogs that approach ARE disruptive to training and reinforce undesirable behavior that I then have to undo and recorrect in my own dog.

In short, leashed or unleashed, the dog should be kept under control, ALWAYS. There's just no excuse.