Heads up, rant ahead.  

Sometimes I feel all I do is bitch about other dog owners.  I’ve come to the conclusion that the people in my neighborhood are the most clueless dog people I know.  

Like for real, there’s the people across the street whose three bull dogs live on their deck.  They are always out on that deck, when I walk Sampson and Delilah at 6:00 AM they are out.  When I walk them at 2:00 PM they are out.  When I walk at 6:00 PM they are out.  When I say the dogs live on the deck, I kid you not.  Once a week the guy goes out and shovels the shit off his deck.

Then there’s the people in the house behind them. I hear their dog yipping sometimes at 11:00 at night.  I’ve walked by that house and they have a crate under their deck.  The yard is not fenced, nor do I see a sign for an E-fence, I have no idea whether they put the dog in the crate at night or not.

Then of course there are the people who ‘walk’ their dogs.  Friday morning I’m walking up my street in the dark and see a person in a reflective vest at the street crossing.  I see this person start heading away from the area I’m walking and think, whew, I’m off the hook.  

Nope, they turn around and I see something very small, very fast with red flashing lights on it.  It’s 6:25 in the morning and my sleep deprived brain says, “Is that a remote car?  WTF is someone doing with a remote car this early in the morning?”  Then I realize it’s a very small dog on a flexi-leash.  

I pull the dogs off the road into someone’s driveway and start feeding them treats, as this person continues to walk down the middle of the street with the dog zigging and zagging from one side of the road to the other.   As she gets closer I say, “Could you move to the other side of the street!”  Meanwhile my dogs start straining to see the other dog, and the other dog starts barking so naturally  Delilah lunges.  

I think to myself, how can one person be so clueless?

Then Saturday I decide to take my dogs up to the field.  Sampson wanted to sniff out one of the trails we haven’t been on since his injury, and I indulged him.  As we headed back up the trail into the field I noticed people there with at least one dog playing frisbee.  I circumvented the field and walked through the trails.

As we hit the trail leading out I debated heading back towards the field or taking a different path.  I had a decent view of the field and approached cautiously.  There were people there with dogs and the dogs were off-leash, but they were heading away from the way I was, so I kept going.

Just as we got to our turn, here comes a dog.  I have my two and I’m trying to get them away, but this dog keeps coming.  I shout, “Get your dog, Get your dog, Get your fucking dog!”

This guy comes running, “He’s friendly, it’s okay.  Relax, it’s okay. He’s friendly.”

“Mine might not be,” I said.

Then as his dog continues at my dogs, I dropped the leash,

The dogs all sniff each other, “See, it’s okay,” he says.

“It’s not okay” I said calling Sampson and Delilah and walking away, fuming all the way home.

Maybe I should just stop walking my dogs.

Or maybe I should move somewhere and buy a large piece of land where I can walk my dogs without encountering anyone.

Rant over.