So here’s the latest DADO report for last month. (For those that might be new to the blog, DADO stands for Dumb Ass Dog Owners and believe you me, there are a number of them in my neighborhood.)
Last Thursday I was taking Sampson for his morning walk. We did our six minutes and then I turned around and crossed the street like I usually do. I noticed one of the houses with an e-fence had their garage door open and I had a brief thought that I should cross the street, but I didn’t.
I should know better because the woman who lives in this house always takes her dog in the car with her when she takes her son to the bus stop. And she passes us almost every day.
I looked carefully and didn’t see a dog and really, what should it matter, the dog’s on an e-fence, right?
Sampson and I are taking our time as is his our custom. Just as we pull level with the driveway, I hear the distinctive sound of a dog on a mission. I look up to see the dog (Roxy) flying out of the garage and across the lawn. (You may remember Roxy, she’s the little puppy that didn’t want to poop while on leash, so the woman left her off and in doing so, her brand new puppy ran across the street to greet Delilah.)
Sampson (of course) starts jumping around, which is horrible for his leg, so I start walking to the other side of the road. Just as we reach the safety of the other side, Roxy gets to the end of her yard, pops out into the street, realizes she’s popped out of her yard, spins around to head back in, then realizes she didn’t get zapped and barrels across the street at us.
I hear the mom call Roxy and then I hear the son say, “Told ya.”
I don’t always leave my yard, but when I do, it’s to sniff a handsome lad.
And there I am standing on the side of the road with my dog, who is now being sniffed over by Roxy.
The mom comes over and tries to grab the dog, but Roxy thinks it’s a game, so she darts away as the woman tells me that her husband ‘edged’ through their electric fence.
And yet, you took your dog outside without a leash?
Roxy dances close beside me and I say, “I’m afraid to grab her collar, I don’t want to startle her and I don’t know how she does with strangers touching her.”
The woman ponders that, “She’s never bitten anyone before…”
Yeah, I’ll keep my hands to myself.
I reach into my treat bag and hand the woman a few tiny pieces of kibble.
“Wow, you’re good” she responds as she takes the kibble and holds it out to her dog, who turns her nose up at it and darts away again.
Sampson’s grown bored with the whole process since he’s already met the dog by now and sits down on the side of the road.
What can say? The lassies all love me.
Meanwhile, people in the neighborhood are leaving for work and cars start moving along the street, while Roxy continues to dance about and play the keep-me-away-from-my-mom game.
Finally, after what seems like 10 minutes, but was probably more like three, Roxy gets close enough for the woman to snag her and the son comes out into the street and carries the dog into the car.
I gather up my wits, my treats and my dog and stagger home clutching my heart.
Really, you can’t make this stuff up.
Does this stuff happen to anyone else? Or is it just me?
Everyone around here seems to walk their dogs off-leash. DRIVES. ME. NUTS.
It’s extremely rare for us. We did have a dog come off after us. The dumb owners had to go inside to put on a coat before they could come get their dog. I was in shock by that dumb move! The dog snarked at sweet Bailie and I wanted to grab it and show who’s boss. Finally stupid, over grown sized son, came and got his dog. No sorry, no nothing except looks at mom like she was the dumb one. There is a reason we walk on a leash. We want to be left alone, duh! People…the world would be a better place without many of them!
I’m clutching MY heart all the way through this story. Off-leash dogs terrify me. Ugh.
You know those mimes floating around about how every dog needs a home and every home needs a dog? Well, this is just one small reason every home should not have a dog. The older I get the more amazed I am a some people’s stupidity.
In some ways, I’m glad we live on a road that’s too busy for walking. We have a big, fenced-in back yard where I can let the girls run around, sniff, play, and do their business. Back on Long Island – where I grew up – the street I lived on was nice and quiet. We had one DADO family there for several years, but once they moved out, the neighborhood got much better. Don’t know what it’s like now, though, some 20-odd years later.
Hmm it sounds like Roxy has not been trained properly. First our dogs will not blast through our efence collar or no, working or not. Right now ours is on the blink was well, but the dogs still go out. They know the boundary because they have been trained. Next, Roxy’s recall sounds like it does not exist. This is my biggest beef with dog owners today. They just do not want to reinforce that recall which in my mind should be a non-negotiable. Also one reason we do not train a recall with treats because as you saw, treats are not an incentive when there is something more important.
Ugh, stupid people. Now that we are in the very heart of DADO land, off leash dogs are everywhere. I hate it. The other day a giant male pitbull almost, thankfully only almost, came after us. And them 5 minutes later a woman stopped in her car to ask me if I had seen 2 irish wolfhounds. She saw my look of fear and gave the usual….They’re friendly, don’t worry. Needless to say I headed back right away and thankfully no one got bit that day.
Phew, I’m just glad that no one got hurt here. It seems that woman’s son is smarter than she is! I suppose that’s the problem when you use an e-fence as your trainer and don’t do any actual training yourself.
My dogs are not bomb proof when it comes to recall. That’s why they don’t leave their yard off leash. People just need to use common sense, and know their dogs.
We’ve discovered there’s a few people in our new neighborhood who don’t leash their dogs…ugh. I’ll have my own story to tell soon; but right now I don’t walk Cricket or Luke off our land, Sheba’s the only one that I know won’t have a problem with another dog approaching her off leash.
My May DADO report is an ugly one. I was walking Jimmy by himself because he needs a lot more exercise the old man Wilson. We were almost home, about a block and a half away. I am on the sidewalk (on leash of course) and see a man headed toward me walking a very large and fat Doodle. I had never seen him before but wasn’t too worried. Doodles are usually nice if rather bouncy. I did notice he was walking the dog on several leashes tied together and he was letting it drag. Because Jimmy is not always nice, he is not allowed to greet other dogs. I ducked down into the street to walk on the far side of a parked minivan. Before I knew it, and completely unexpectedly, the Doodle flies around the front of the minivan and attacks Jimmy! The man has no control due to the loose leash and doesn’t even stop walking! I had to pull his huge dog off of my cowering dog! In an effort to shorten this comment, I’ll just say we got into quite a yelling match. We were so loud, John heard us from a block and a half away and rode his bike over to see what was up. Then he got in a yelling match as well! The guy was quite an a-hole and never even asked if Jimmy was OK. Fortunately there were no puncture wounds, but I’m sure the altercation did nothing to improve Jimmy’s attitude toward other dogs!
She should go and play in all that early morning traffic!
Years ago there was a meeting of stupid people who wanted to own dogs but they found out they could have a dog only if they moved to Jody land. No siriusly, it has been years since we have had an unleashed dog in our neighborhood and they had broken their fence to escape the yard. We do have a few people who never walk their dogs, but our yards are pretty big so they seem to get enough exercise, just not the pee-mail that dogs love to get.
There really is just no cure for stupid, is there? Glad there was a ‘semi’ good outcome in that Sampson didn’t flip out, Roxy didn’t go all ape-sh*t on him and you weren’t arrested after punching the lights outa that numbskull neighbor. I don’t know how you manage to do it. For the record, as soon as a dog realizes those e-fences only sting for a second (or don’t when they aren’t operational), you can pretty much count on them blasting through like it was nothing. Oh wait…in this case it IS nothing because of the DADO dad. Should I add…allegedly on the DADO part? Yeah, I didn’t think so either. 😉
I’ll never understand the off leash part, especially since she knew about the fence…
On another note I laughed way too hard the other day when I was reading an article about construction. Turns out the work dado is some sort of groove or something and I corrected them out loud and said “No, that’s not what a dado is”
You may be a pet blogger if that’s your first reaction to seeing dado 🙂
We got attacked by a Doberman. This woman has no control over her dog and we were walking and were going to pass them and her dog got off his leash and ran over and started biting at us and barking and she is yelling and can not catch him. I am so pissed because it has run out from the house before. CONTROL YOUR DOGS!! A friend of mine is a sheriff and stopped (along with about 7 other cars because she could not catch her dog and we were in the middle of the road) and they finally caught him. Then she had the nerve to tell me to text her when I was out so it will not happen again. What!! It is your dog that is the problem. I should be able to walk my dog on her leash and not be afraid of being attacked!!
You have some winner walks!
In our old neighborhood, it often seemed to me that the kids were the only one with common sense when it came to living with dogs! Sounds like things aren’t much different in your neighborhood. At least it might mean there’s hope for the future, right?