Restraint versus control

You’re running down a narrow forest path, when you encounter a dog.

It’s on a lead (that’s a leash, if you’re from the wrong side of the Atlantic) but the other end is being held by someone who has no control over his dog. As you pass, the dog leaps up and bites you.

You run on, and encounter another dog.

It’s not restrained, but the owner calls it to his side and tells it to sit down while you pass. It obeys and watches you good-naturedly.

Which is better?

Obviously the latter is better but how can you garantee that all people will learn to control their dog so well?

I posted at length about this already. Leashed dogs may still cause trouble if they are particularly ill-behaved and the owners are clueless. But really, if you believe even leashed dog can cause trouble then why on earth would you advocate unleashing them? Will unleasing them suddenly make them better dogs?

So you’re advocatin restraining an animal that is not dangerous, while recognising that restraining a dangerous animal does not necessarily solve the problem?

Well, I’m glad that’s sorted out.

You said yourself that it takes time to train a dog, so let’s do away with the word ‘suddenly’.

Teach a dog to listen and obey, and it doesn’t need the lead - most of the time.

Rely on the lead, without teaching the dog to listen and obey, and you have an uncontrollable animal if it gets free.

Freeing a dog is part of the process of creating a responsible dog.

It’s all the ‘if’ and ‘maybe’ that annoys me.

A dog ‘may’ be dangerous.

I ‘may’ get eaten by the ocean if I go to Thailand for CNY.

I may be a nasty evil man because I’m a laowai, and not fit to date Mr Chen’s daughter.

But on the other hand, most dogs in my neck of the woods are very well behaved and most people recognise that, and there isn’t much danger of another tsunami, and there is no need for anyone to have irrational fears about me because of my ethnic background.

I hate to see lives ruled by fear of low-probability events. And when probabilities can be changed by educating people, then it’s not helpful to give in to fear and follow/create rules that reinforce those fears.

[quote=“Loretta”]It’s all the ‘if’ and ‘maybe’ that annoys me.

A dog ‘may’ be dangerous.

I ‘may’ get eaten by the ocean if I go to Thailand for CNY.

I may be a nasty evil man because I’m a laowai, and not fit to date Mr Chen’s daughter.

But on the other hand, most dogs in my neck of the woods are very well behaved and most people recognise that, and there isn’t much danger of another tsunami, and there is no need for anyone to have irrational fears about me because of my ethnic background.

I hate to see lives ruled by fear of low-probability events. And when probabilities can be changed by educating people, then it’s not helpful to give in to fear and follow/create rules that reinforce those fears.[/quote]

It’s not about educating people, it’s about creating even more regulations and rules and systems. How do you propose to have your type of world come about? Seriously. How will disputes be handled? How will misehaved dogs be dealt with? I don;t mean biters but mere nuisance, misbehaved dogs who may jump on people. Are they sent back to obediance school? Do they have to go on a leash? And who is to say when they can be released?

You’re proposing system that would entail much more rules and regulations and bureacracy than now.

I’m not proposing anything.

I am simply asserting that not all dogs need to be kept restrained all the time, and that to do so is unfair to those animals and their owners. It also doesn’t solve the real problem.

[quote=“Loretta”]I’m not proposing anything.

I am simply asserting that not all dogs need to be kept restrained all the time, and that to do so is unfair to those animals and their owners. It also doesn’t solve the real problem.[/quote]

I agree not all dogs need to be restrained if you are simply talking about their threat to others, but we live in a complex crowded world where liberties have to be weighed against potential dangers. It’s as simple as that. I don’t want to have to worry every time i go out, especially when I with a child in a park, that the big dog I see nearby is friendly and/or well under the control of his master. Which is more important, my peace of mind and safety or your dog’s freedom?

Besides, many cities, including Taipei, have dog off-leash areas put in place. I think a combination of off-leash areas and strong leashing laws for everywhere else is the best comprimise we have in a modern world.

Lotus Hill has a leash rule, but the security guards, who all know and love my mutt Gustav, give him a pass. Why? Because they know that he does exactly what he’s told. I’ll take him out on summer evenings when other owners are walking their dogs and make him sit about 30 feet away while I go pet the other dogs and feed them doggy snacks. Gustav is very good about it. He knows that he is fulfilling a mission (obeying my command) and the praise, affection, (yes, and doggy snack) he gets upon completion of that mission make it worthwhile to him. If everybody could guarantee that their dog would behave the same way, the world would be a happier place, (and the dogs would be a lot happier also!)

As Orwell puts it, all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. :scooby:

I must reluctantly :wink: agree with Mucha Man.

Ideally, all dogs would be well trained and well behaved. But, on this planet, the ideal has yet to be reached.

Gustav is an exceptionally well trained and behaved dog. I don’t know Brian, but I’ll take Loretta’s word that he is harmless and well behaved.

My dog, Dofu, is harmless, but not really well behaved. Thus, I keep him on a lead/leash at all times. Also, he isn’t “good” with other dogs, so I hate it when other people’s dogs, not on leads, run over to see Dofu. Luckily for those other dogs, Dofu is not an American Pit Bull Terrier (APBT).

There are too many people who do not properly restrain their dogs. Just this weekend two incidents:

  1. I went to buy Dofu a nice bed at a pet store that I frequent. Outside the store was parked a car and inside the car was a massive 80 pound APBT. An absolutely beautiful dog (I love the APBT breed)… however, it was in the car barking at me … the windows were down and the dog was restrained with only a thin canvas leash. There is no fucking way that I would park my car outside a pet store with an 80 pound two-year old intact male APBT thus lightly restrained inside with the windows down (open). That dog was magnificent… but was definitely a beast of a dog. The owner came out of the store and he confirmed that the dog has already had several goes at dogs here in Taiwan (he brought the dog from the US just recently) and has done some damage. This is not sufficient restraint for this dog.

  2. Walking Dofu yesterday around the outside of Daan Park. A guy comes around the corner running with his two dogs both on leads… leads of about twenty feet long! As Dofu and I attempt to get out of the way, the guys girlfriend runs into me on her bike as she rides next to them. Fucking idiots. They never stop to ask if I’m OK.

Both the APBT owner and apparently the runner thought their dogs were well behaved and sufficiently restrained. I don’t agree.

Come on, it wasn’t that bad. :slight_smile:

[quote]
Ideally, all dogs would be well trained and well behaved. But, on this planet, the ideal has yet to be reached.

Gustav is an exceptionally well trained and behaved dog. I don’t know Brian, but I’ll take Loretta’s word that he is harmless and well behaved.

My dog, Dofu, is harmless, but not really well behaved. Thus, I keep him on a lead/leash at all times. Also, he isn’t “good” with other dogs, so I hate it when other people’s dogs, not on leads, run over to see Dofu.[/quote]

This is a good point. Not all dogs get along well with each other and the danger to human beings around several dogs going at it is not to be dismissed.

After I had my three run-ins (on one day) with badly behaved dogs in the bog I called the human society who handle the enforcement of animal by-laws here. I talked to the manager there for a long time. She lives near the bog and encounters problems with people thinking that they can let their dog run up to hers (hers is always on a leash). When she warns the people to call their dog back, they usually reply, “But he’s friendly.” To which she replies, “But my dog’s not.”

The point of course is that dogs can be a danger to each other and not just humans.

The area I jog in is part a decent suburb. The dogs are well groomed and often expensive breeds. The owners are presentable middle class people. Yes, even here I only find half the people give a fuck if their dog runs up to me, or jumps on me.

Now when I am jogging I am aware that I may startle a dog so I always stop when I see an unleashed dog. I expect the owner to notice and leash therir dog. Or at least to call out, “he’s friendly,” or something to show a bit of courtesy. But less than half do. And when I ask them to call their dog back they look at me like I have a problem. Some refuse outright.

So, here, in the heart of north america, in a well-off area with educated people, we still can’t get more than half to care about others around them in relation to their dog. And that is the real issue. It’s not about how well-behaved your dog is. It’s how well-behaved YOU are. How civic minded are you.

Unless you can convince that the majority of people will ever grow to be concerned enough about their fellow man to not put him in an uncomfortable position, especially when it means they must give up something they want and enjoy, then I say leash laws are what we need.

I want to ask Maoman and Loretta what they would do if someone asked them to leash their dog. How would they respond. Especially if the person insisted even after you assured him the dog is friendly and well-behaved.

And I’d like you to think about how you would have answered a week ago before we started discussing this topic.

I’d leash him right away. If people even look a little bit concerned the first words out of my mouth are Ta hen gui - ta bu hui yao ren… (He’s well-behaved and won’t bite) In the elevator he has to sit, and he’s not allowed to sniff people, although sometimes he does, especially if they’re pet owners. At the buxiban, Gustav is allowed to run around with the kids, where they abuse him mercilessly (not really, but he does endure a lot of hugging!) but if a new parent comes in with a kid, we tell him to go to his mat in the conrer of the office, and he’ll stay there until we tell him it’s ok to leave. When he meets strangers, or strange dogs, especially little ones, we have him sit, so they don’t feel threatened. We don’t let him socialize with stray dogs at all, since they operate by a different set of rules altogether. He isn’t allowed to mount other dogs, and we don’t let other dogs mount him. (It’s a power/dominance thing, not a sexual thing). I try to educate other people about dogs as much as possible, especially how to approach dogs they haven’t met before.

Owning a dog is one of the great joys in my life. Training a dog just makes a good thing better.

I’m really enjoying this thread as it makes me realize how little I know about training dogs as pets. Fascinating stuff. Of course a lot of it is the same for working dogs, but there are some major differences.
I was interested in Maoman’s method of getting Gustav to sit when around other dogs because of course that would never have worked with my dogs, which were trained to work with perhaps as many as 30 other unfamiliar dogs, often working at the very limits of hollering distance and sometimes way out of reach of human command altogether. We trained (or rather, train, as my old man is still doing it) our animals to totally ignore other dogs and people – they’re not aggressive or otherwise to either dogs or people – as far as they are concerned, such distractions simply don’t exist.
Damn, I have to work, but I’ll keep reading this thread. Despite what Dave’s Girl thinks of me, killing animals is not the reason I shoot – my main enjoyment comes from working the dogs, whether they’re springers, labs, pointers or lurchers.
There’s a real sense of satisfaction in sending a lab out across two miles of broken ground in a raging January blizzard to retrieve a winged goose and to see him come back half an hour later with the goose in his jaws, to watch a springer quartering on to a scent and working it up a hedgeline, always staying within range of the gun, to work a pair of pointers through deep heather after grouse, or to watch a pair of lurchers run down a hare.
Poetry in motion.

I’d leash him right away. [/quote]

I believe you would, and Loretta too, but unfortunately, not everyone will and that is the real issue. In fact, like I said, the problem I am starting to think is really not about dog training at all, but character training in people. Even with the best training in the world, a dog in the hands of an inconsiderate citizen is still a potential menace.

Did Barbara Woodhouse ever make it to your side of the pond? There was this TV series in the UK a long time ago featuring a professional animal trainer and a bunch of dogs with their owners.

The most vivid memory is of problem dogs suddenly becoming good dogs when she took control of them. She spent her time training the owners, and the dogs just responded according to how they were treated. It really seemed to be that simple.

(The other abiding memory is of her blowing gently up the noses of various animals to make friends with them. Apparently it’s a sure-fire way.)

I’m mostly with Maoman on how the dog should behave, and have learned a lot from him. The difference is that I’m not interested in appeasing people who are making unreasonable requests. If I’m walking in the forest, where the paths are narrow, and someone is concerned, then I don’t need to be asked to physically restrain the dog. I may not actually put the lead on him, but I’ll hold his harness and usually step off the path while people pass. However, if we’re not in close proximity and someone just doesn’t like to see an unrestrained dog then they’re out of luck with me.

Some anonymous person sent the security guards to ask me to restrain my dog a while back at Lotus Hill. The dog was sitting close by my feet at the time, and when we turned to look at him we found that a three-year old kid had wandered over to pull his ears. Under the circumstances the poor guard had to accept that a lead wasn’t really going to make any difference. His heart wasn’t in it anyway, many of the guards play with him when we’re walking around the grounds.

To answer your question, if you ask me to control my dog then that’s fair and reasonable. In fact, you shouldn’t have to ask. In a crowded environment, or one where there is a likelihood of the dog being startled by something or just feeling nervous, then putting the dog on a lead is a good idea. But if the dog is not bothering you then why would you have to ask? I think that’s where we would disagree.

I spent my teenage years in rural Wales. Sheepdogs. No suburban niceties. Good dogs roam free. Bad dogs don’t last long. People are responsible.