What??

Did someone mention dogs??

“Kicking a dog doesnt help”

What the original poster doesnt seem to understand is different people have different agenda’s. He needs to emphathise a bit more.

For instance if the OP’s dog, which you dont know is running towards you and you think it might bite you and you kick it and then it runs away. Then that does “help” you from you point of view. Your unlikely to see the dog again and it didnt bite you.

However it doesnt “help” the OP as it upsets his dog.

The OP doesnt seem to realise were all trying not to upset his dog.

but is it ok for me to kick next doors cat back over the fence when he $hits on my lawn?

tj – where do i stand legally, if im in fear of my lawn getting soiled?

yep. If you get to the point where you have to kick the dog then it’s all gone wrong. If you have time, make a lot of noise and go straight at the bugger. All dogs are cowards and will back down (trained attack dogs excepted). Otherwise, just kick ’em if they’re attacking. I’m hoping the couple of times I’ve had to do it, it’s not taught the dog a lesson but has taught the owner to control/train their dog. On both occasions I’ve offered the same to the owners when they complained but they declined, which was a bit unfair I thought.

is it wrong to wear a pomeranian as a helmet?

A dog went for me today on the Surrey Hills. The woman walking them had about 5 or 6 and had barely control of any of them, most of them looked like collies, my sister has 2 and I’m used to their temprament.. Anyway one chased me for about 30 yards, with her screaming at it, before it went to latch onto my foot. I had no hesitation in dealing a swift kick in the teeth to get rid of the mut.

Dorset knob
The point about reasonable fear is true. If a westie comes at me to be in fear of it is not reasonable, but if a great dane comes towards a child or a granny it would be a reasonable fear. I have seen a granny in a wheelchair screaming in fear as a friendly collie ran up to her. That would be breaking the law. Re read the post above from the chap about his children’s fear of dogs.

As for "under control" – there does not appear to be a good legal definition but the guidance seems to suggest on a lead or come to heel or drop immediately when called. I have a friend with well trained dogs that never go on a lead and have no need to – because he calls "down" and the dog drops immediately to the ground.

I have no problem with well trained dogs. Its badly trained dogs that bug me.

I have a pet troll that lives under a bridge. It likes to throw stones at people and sniff pretty girls bottoms. I think this is funny so I have not trained it. Is that reasonable?

I’ve read most of this and now decided I am no longer able to keep my dog.
My poor son will have to be parted from his faithful friend

But I’ll tell him its because bicyclists know everything and he should be grateful for this.
Bye bye Hope

You say "well trained dogs are not a problem", but consider the process by which dogs become trained. You don’t just spend a week or 6 months working on it and then magically have a trained dog you can take anywhere. It’s a constant process, and months of training can be undone in a second. Training has to be constantly reinforced and can be undone in a second.

Take training your dog to behave around cyclists, for instance. If you’re dog is motion- or sound-sensitive, has chasing or herding or guarding instincts, or just hasn’t seen a lycra-boy with a funny shaped head before, then the owner has to desensitize the dog, gradually teaching him that the bike is ok and not something to be scared of. The more the dog underestands and believes that, the better he will become around cyclists.

All this desensitizing has to be done under controlled conditions, obviously. When the owner is confident of the dog’s response, he might begin introducing it to real-life situations, ideally in a controllable fashion. Perhaps get a group of friends to ride past, each stopping to give the dog a treat or friendly pet, to reassure the animal that cyclists are ok. Again, this has to repeated until the dog stops reacting. This stage, too, can take minutes, days, weeks, months or years, depending on the animal.

So, you now have a dog who seems to be ok to take into the great outdoors, supposing all his other behaviours allow that, like the basic drop and recall you’ve been going on about.

If he now is now let off lead, sees a cyclist he hasn’t seen before and suddenly takes fright – perhaps it’s a different shape bicycle, or a singlespeed that sweeps up silently from behind – it’s a critical time. If the cyclist ignores him, doesn’t make eye contact, and carries on, everything will be ok in the vast majority of cases. Whereas, if the cyclist gets all hung up on his rights, stares at the dog and/or its owner and generally gives off an aggressive vibe, the dog will get even more scared. And fear can show itself as aggression.

In that instant, all the training is undone, and it’s back to square one for the dog, the owner and the cyclist. Dog and owner have to start training all over again, the cyclist has his own worst fears confirmed.

Do you see the cycle I’m trying to break? If you can bring yourself to believe that not every scared dog you see is a rabid man-eater, you will be happier, the dog will be happier, and everyone will be able to go about their lives with more ease.

But that’s just background and something dog owners will be familiar with. We’re used to the idea that non-dog-owners don’t know, and don’t need to to know, about dog training.

My point, as I’ve already said, is that by showing inappropriate aggression to dogs you are actually making everyone’s lives harder, not just the dog owners. You’re actually helping to create an aggressive dog, you’re not ‘teaching it a lesson’. You’re doing a disservice to the cycling community by making one more dog believe that cyclists are nasty, painful things to be scared of, which increases the chances of aggression being shown at the next encounter.

I can see the weakness of my argument. I’m appealing to you for consideration, whereas you believe you shouldn’t need to be considerate, because it’s not your dog and, what’s more, you don’t even like dogs. Why should you?

I can’t answer that.

Park worker to me this morning ‘thats the friendliest dog I’ve seen for a while’ 😀

Ok then if we are posting pics heres mine running uncontrollably right by my side whilst Im riding, he’s looking for TJ in order to knock him to the ground, rape the daylight out of him and then eat him.

lol will anyone actually bother to read all that?

Scary dog, Dez – I’m running for my life. Better kill it.

Better kill it

I’m sure the Ark will take care of that for me

Scruff you’re dog looks happy as a pig in shit! Dalmy doing what he’s born to do, that’s beautiful.

Better kill it, though.

I can’t be arsed to read all this slurry. But I shall say this. Never, in all my years of cycling, have I ever had cause to fear from an over-friendly or aggressive gerbil.

I got chased by a dog a couple of weeks ago when I was cycling to work. Barking, snarling and generally not pleased.

I just cycled on and ignored it. 😉

Mods, please end this thread.

You lot are nearly as bad as weekend warrior hikers, how the hell is there over 200 replies to this thread?

surely…

if your dogs out and off its lead anywhere in public and its out of control causing someone else to react then its the owners fault

if its off the lead and perfectly in control and not going to go mental randomly then its cool

My girlfriends dog got thrown over the wall shot dead by the farmer as it was chasing sheep (not a nice sight for a 6year old girl to see im sure)
but thats bringing a side fact in that the farmers a prick to do that in front of a little girl.

how the hell is there over 200 replies to this thread?

and then proceeds to type what’s already been said.

THAT’S HOW!!

What do non-dog/animal lovers have as pets?

Iguana’s on strings?
Girlfriend tethered to the bed?
TammyGotchi (or however you spell it)
Themselves, they are all the friends and companions that they need?

My girlfriends dog got thrown over the wall shot dead by the farmer as it was chasing sheep (not a nice sight for a 6year old girl to see im sure)
but thats bringing a side fact in that the farmers a prick to do that in front of a little girl.

Perhaps he didn’t want his livelyhood ruined for the sake of a 6 year old girl’s sensitivities? It’s more than just lambing time that is a very critical time for ewes not to be scared you know….

Ewe are kid’ing right?

"My girlfriends dog got thrown over the wall shot dead by the farmer as it was chasing sheep (not a nice sight for a 6year old girl to see im sure)"

The 6 year old and your girlfriend are two different people, right? 😯

Hora – a dog running loose in a field of pregnant ewes can lead to many of the ewes spontaneously aborting which could easily wipe out a large part of that farmers profits for the year. The farmer has an absolute right to shoot any dog running free on his land if it is harassing livestock

My girlfriends dog got thrown over the wall shot dead by the farmer as it was chasing sheep (not a nice sight for a 6year old girl to see im sure)
but thats bringing a side fact in that the farmers a prick to do that in front of a little girl.

Well done that farmer – you might think twice about letting your dog interfere with someone else’s livliehood and your likkle girl might have learned something about the responsibilities of keeping dogs. Probably not though, if you’re the kind of idiot who thinks it’s ok to let your dog attack sheep.
If it was me, I’d have shot the dog and charged you to get rid of the carcass. Leaving it for you to get rid of, and in front of the girl, shows a spot more originality than I’d expect from most farmers.

Anyway, forget all that … let’s dance.

Clicky smiley: 🙂

DK, bet you regret starting this thread after all the bigotry thats been spouted on here!

DK, bet you regret starting this thread after all the bigotry thats been spouted on here!

I feel dirty and ashamed! I was only trying to help as well – but I can see how the wording of my original post probably didn’t help. Sorry.

This thread can be shot and thrown over the wall now, I think. We’ve all said our piece 🙂

haha **** hell this forum is full of tossers,

1, I live on a farm
2, I didnt once say the dog attacked a sheep
3, The dog was actually playing in an open field and has never caused a problem to a sheep / lamb or any cattle.. you certainly dont sound like a farmer.
4, GET OVER YOURSELF what the **** teaches a kid about responsibility when a pet she loves gets thrown over a wall shot from close range with a shotgun… **** all is what.

Actually, you said:

shot dead by the farmer as it was chasing sheep

That’s asking for trouble, surely?

It was chasing sheep so that ain’t good. My parents’ golden retrievers ignored sheep so could be left off their leads but unfortunately one of them didn’t think lambs were the same thing and gave chase to one. So now they’re kept on their leads. Stupid dog….

It probably teaches the child important lessons about death, and hope. That’s why children have pets isn’t it? She now knows that at any moment the blasted corpse of anything she dares to love could be thrown over a nearby wall. Practically every day must be better than she expects.

Yeah theres no harm to chasing sheep, a warning would have sufficed not a 12 guage from an ignorant man whos life revolves around game hunting and menial tasks.

And im sure we have enough crap in life with loved ones dieing rather than a trigger happy farmer, Like I say I live on a farm, a working farm so Im not just chatting shit from my own make belief fact.

If you live on a farm, then parhaps you should know better. If the farmer had been having problems with dogs worrying sheep recently, he may not have felt like taking the chance, especially as your original post stated that it was indeed chasing sheep. Perhaps you need to learn to read, and swear less too.

Funnily enough, whilst walking on the headland here in Wales with my GF (whose house is on the farm there), a terrier came flying round from some rocks, chasing a flock of sheep towards the cliff edge. When I asked the owner to get the dog under control, they told me it was none of my business. A minute later, I heard a couple of shots, some screaming, and the dog was dead, shot by the farmer I’d just warned them about about. No doubt as I don’t have a Welsh accent, my views on her little (now late) darling’s behaviour were seen as irrelevant – a fact, in her Scottish accent (so not local either), she was only too happy to point out.

So because on your farm the farmer is happy to let strangers’ dogs chase sheep, other farmers should follow suit, and risk their profits? Interesting philosophy, I’ll ask a few of the farmers round here what they think eh?

Her house is next to the farm and they are the only 2 houses for about 4miles… you’d have thought to have used some common sense.. not to mention here in the lake district we dont have many cliff edges in our fields.

^ What you said about the terrier is fair play as that is a livelyhood thing. this however is not.

Well, I’ll agree if he doesn’t have a history of tourists’ / walkers’ dogs causing trouble, and knew whose dog it was so he could have warned them first, then fair enough. If however, there was a history (like the farmer I mentioned), then I guess you’d have known that living there, and ensured the dog was always under control near his flock. Maybe he could have reacted in a less lethal manner, but the fact remains that he saw a loose dog chasing his sheep, and did what he has every right to do to protect his flock. For animals with so little brain, sheep don’t half worry about things, dogs in particular!

Dorset Knob – for sure a lot of hyperbole and bigotry on this thread – but also some useful stuff. I hope that my contributions have helped some dog owners see others point of view – and perhaps reinforced dog owners obligations.

Most of the dog owners who have posted on here have been reasonable and thoughtful and hopefully a bit more empathy for others views will be apparent in future. I may even have learnt one or two things myself.

I think it sums up as

Not everyone views a playful dog in the same way. Most dog owners are responsible. dogs can be trained properly but some folk won’t / can’t do it. A well traine4d under control dog is no problem. A badly trained dog can and is a real issue for some.