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> How is it inconsiderate if the dogs themselves are behaving? This is the problem right here. We have no idea whether your dogs are properly trained or not. T

> How is it inconsiderate if the dogs themselves are behaving? This is the problem right here. We have no idea whether your dogs are properly trained or not. There is no certification or regulation for having a dog off leash. We have no idea if they’re going to suddenly snap and, in the worst case scenario, viciously attack a baby, something they are biologically quite capable of. It is probably different in collectivist societies where folks consider proper training a prerequisite to going off-leash, but where I’m from we have a scourge of ignorant owners who are not in control of their dogs. They ruin it for everybody.

diggan 5y ago
> We have no idea whether your dogs are properly trained or not I think the assumption is, at least from mine and others like me, is that if your dog is off-leash, you can handle your dog off-leash. The same if you bring friends to some social event, you wouldn't bring them if you can't handle them and they can behave in public. I'm not afraid they are gonna attack me, although sometimes humans do attack other humans, most of them are fine so no need to worry in general. > but where I’m from we have a scourge of ignorant owners who are not in control of their dogs. They ruin it for everybody. Yes, I agree, it's terrible when owners have no control over their dogs. But that's not relevant to the leash itself, that's relevant to the expertise of the owner. Dogs on leashes misbehave as well, and can easily (if wanted and the owner is a terrible one) unleash themselves by either raw power or the owner not paying attention.
- TomVDB 5y ago
  > The same if you bring friends to some social event, you wouldn't bring them if you can't handle them and they can behave in public. No, this is not the same. You are legally responsible for the behavior of your dog.
  - musingsole 5y ago
    The legal responsibility angle of this all always leave my head spinning. If you let your dog off leash in a place where it is illegal to do so, congratulations: you've just lost the lawsuit. If anything remotely funny happens -- regardless of what -- the liability can and will fall on the dog-owner for their reckless behavior. The real sad part of this is when the dog gets put down for the stupid owner...but my point is the people who let their dogs off leash have also posted a big, red sign saying "I'm responsible for anything happening here" -- even though few of them seem aware of that fact. Liability only becomes a question again if there is another dog-owner with their dog off leash.
  - wang_li 5y ago
    Dogs should be treated like guns and other weapons. If a person gets a fine or jail time for shooting someone, a dog owner should get the same if their dog bites someone. If my gun would be taken away if I rubbed it in someone's crotch, then a dog should be taken away if it sticks its snout in someone's crotch. Perhaps one would say "it's not the owner's fault, the dog makes it's own decisions", well that makes it worse. my gun doesn't aim and fire itself. So maybe dogs should be regulated even more than guns.
- ncallaway 5y ago
  > I think the assumption is, at least from mine and others like me, is that if your dog is off-leash, you can handle your dog off-leash. Which may apply to 90% of off leash dogs. Unfortunately, the other 10% that have dogs that *cannot* be off leash, but do so anyway ruin it for you. There are people that are afraid of dogs. They have no way of knowing, at a distance, whether your dogs will behave or run up to them. So when they see any dog off leash in a leash required area, they have to take a large detour to give the off leash dogs a wide enough berth. If you’re in an area where leashes are required, and you have your dogs off leash (no matter how well trained they are) you are being extremely inconsiderate of the other people around you. As a dog owner as well, I wish there were more acceptable off leash places in society for dogs, and I cherish the areas where off leash behavior is acceptable. But taking them off leash, when others have a fair expectation that they will be leashed is rude and inconsiderate. Finally, in my personal experience the number of well trained off leash dogs (that can behave appropriately in a “leash required” setting), is nowhere near 90%. In fact, I would say the majority of off leash dogs I run across do not behave appropriately. It’s probably closer to 25% of the off leash dogs I run across that are trained well enough that they behave acceptably in on-leash settings
  - fbelzile 5y ago
    As a cyclist, I've had a fair share of "well trained" dogs chase me and nip at my ankles. It's scary and usually only ends after I stop, get off my bike and walk back towards the owner so they can regain control. > Taking them off leash, when others have a fair expectation that they will be leashed is rude and inconsiderate. This sums it up perfectly. Thank you!
    - diggan 5y ago
      > I've had a fair share of "well trained" dogs chase me and nip at my ankles Not sure why you say "well trained", the owners have obviously not trained the dog and has no business being off the leash, they are not well trained by any definition and you won't see dogs like that without a leash here in Barcelona. > > Taking them off leash, when others have a fair expectation that they will be leashed is rude and inconsiderate. > This sums it up perfectly. Thank you! So... If there is no expectation of having your dog on the leash, then it's not rude and inconsiderate? Makes me feel a bit better at least, as the expectation here where I live seems to be very different than where you folks live.
- FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
  > if you bring friends to some social event, you wouldn't bring them if you can't handle them and they can behave in public. I'm not afraid they are gonna attack me Maybe, but I'd still feel safer if they were properly leashed and muzzled.
- wila 5y ago
  Just a few seconds of not paying attention are enough when a dog gets excited. I walk a cat -on a leash- and dogs without a leash are a real problem to be on the lookout for at all times.
smcl 5y ago
Can I ask where you're from? This might be a cultural difference. I mentioned originally in another comment (then removed it as it looked a bit hostile) that this might be something more US-centric as it hasn't been a problem anywhere I've seen in Europe. I don't mean to bash the USA here, but I think there might be more "this is a free country and I can do what I want..." types over there who (if they have a dog) are more likely to not be considerate of others or respond aggressively when confronted about such behaviour. We'd be talking in cliches and stereotypes of course, but I imagine that sort of person is antisocial generally. I dunno, I'm just trying to rationalize the stark differences in our experiences because here dog owners are by and large extremely considerate.
- blamazon 5y ago
  I think we’re already past cliches and stereotypes when talking of all dog owners who walk without a leash! I’m from USA. On the same page with you here about the collectivist vs individual freedom. As you noted it’s a tragedy of the commons—-because unquestioned individual freedom is prized so heavily in USA, some dog owners take advantage of it without appropriate precaution, and those people tend to do things like call the police on black people, or scare and injure children by accident with their dogs, and these incidents correspondingly build our stereotype of off-leashers. Ironically this also leads to laws and rules and a general social attitude that restrict our individual freedom to walk dogs off leash. In that way, Europeans are more ‘individually free’ on this topic because, as you note, off leash dog walking is totally normal over there because people wouldn’t think of doing it without appropriate control of their dog. Interesting to think about the tension and paradoxes between individual and collectivist freedoms. But, you probably have some annoying dog tax ;)
  - smcl 5y ago
    We actually do have such a tax! And I'm glad you reminded me because my residency status changed meaning that I now need to start paying this :D The tax is from the local municipality, and I think it’s for upkeep of some dog infrastructure - dedicated dog parks, bins with little bags. It’s not much
musingsole 5y ago
> We have no idea whether your dogs are properly trained or not. This is interesting to me because we have no such assurances about other humans either. But acting on the fear that a given human isn't adequately trained and restrained is labeled with every variant of ignorance.
- SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
  We do ban humans from certain spaces and limit humans behaviors and ability to travel without restriction or direct watch though.
- blamazon 5y ago
  Such are the ethical pitfalls that we fall into when one species decides to domesticate and selectively breed another species for thousands of years. The subjugation is baked in already, literally in their DNA.
- v-yadli 5y ago
  I'll probably be more confident about a dog if: - It's well dressed instead of naked - It walks on two feet - It speaks English ... And vice versa.

diggan 5y ago

> We have no idea whether your dogs are properly trained or not I think the assumption is, at least from mine and others like me, is that if your dog is off-leash, you can handle your dog off-leash. The same if you bring friends to some social event, you wouldn't bring them if you can't handle them and they can behave in public. I'm not afraid they are gonna attack me, although sometimes humans do attack other humans, most of them are fine so no need to worry in general. > but where I’m from we have a scourge of ignorant owners who are not in control of their dogs. They ruin it for everybody. Yes, I agree, it's terrible when owners have no control over their dogs. But that's not relevant to the leash itself, that's relevant to the expertise of the owner. Dogs on leashes misbehave as well, and can easily (if wanted and the owner is a terrible one) unleash themselves by either raw power or the owner not paying attention.

TomVDB 5y ago
> The same if you bring friends to some social event, you wouldn't bring them if you can't handle them and they can behave in public. No, this is not the same. You are legally responsible for the behavior of your dog.
- musingsole 5y ago
  The legal responsibility angle of this all always leave my head spinning. If you let your dog off leash in a place where it is illegal to do so, congratulations: you've just lost the lawsuit. If anything remotely funny happens -- regardless of what -- the liability can and will fall on the dog-owner for their reckless behavior. The real sad part of this is when the dog gets put down for the stupid owner...but my point is the people who let their dogs off leash have also posted a big, red sign saying "I'm responsible for anything happening here" -- even though few of them seem aware of that fact. Liability only becomes a question again if there is another dog-owner with their dog off leash.
- wang_li 5y ago
  Dogs should be treated like guns and other weapons. If a person gets a fine or jail time for shooting someone, a dog owner should get the same if their dog bites someone. If my gun would be taken away if I rubbed it in someone's crotch, then a dog should be taken away if it sticks its snout in someone's crotch. Perhaps one would say "it's not the owner's fault, the dog makes it's own decisions", well that makes it worse. my gun doesn't aim and fire itself. So maybe dogs should be regulated even more than guns.
ncallaway 5y ago
> I think the assumption is, at least from mine and others like me, is that if your dog is off-leash, you can handle your dog off-leash. Which may apply to 90% of off leash dogs. Unfortunately, the other 10% that have dogs that *cannot* be off leash, but do so anyway ruin it for you. There are people that are afraid of dogs. They have no way of knowing, at a distance, whether your dogs will behave or run up to them. So when they see any dog off leash in a leash required area, they have to take a large detour to give the off leash dogs a wide enough berth. If you’re in an area where leashes are required, and you have your dogs off leash (no matter how well trained they are) you are being extremely inconsiderate of the other people around you. As a dog owner as well, I wish there were more acceptable off leash places in society for dogs, and I cherish the areas where off leash behavior is acceptable. But taking them off leash, when others have a fair expectation that they will be leashed is rude and inconsiderate. Finally, in my personal experience the number of well trained off leash dogs (that can behave appropriately in a “leash required” setting), is nowhere near 90%. In fact, I would say the majority of off leash dogs I run across do not behave appropriately. It’s probably closer to 25% of the off leash dogs I run across that are trained well enough that they behave acceptably in on-leash settings
- fbelzile 5y ago
  As a cyclist, I've had a fair share of "well trained" dogs chase me and nip at my ankles. It's scary and usually only ends after I stop, get off my bike and walk back towards the owner so they can regain control. > Taking them off leash, when others have a fair expectation that they will be leashed is rude and inconsiderate. This sums it up perfectly. Thank you!
  - diggan 5y ago
    > I've had a fair share of "well trained" dogs chase me and nip at my ankles Not sure why you say "well trained", the owners have obviously not trained the dog and has no business being off the leash, they are not well trained by any definition and you won't see dogs like that without a leash here in Barcelona. > > Taking them off leash, when others have a fair expectation that they will be leashed is rude and inconsiderate. > This sums it up perfectly. Thank you! So... If there is no expectation of having your dog on the leash, then it's not rude and inconsiderate? Makes me feel a bit better at least, as the expectation here where I live seems to be very different than where you folks live.
FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
> if you bring friends to some social event, you wouldn't bring them if you can't handle them and they can behave in public. I'm not afraid they are gonna attack me Maybe, but I'd still feel safer if they were properly leashed and muzzled.
wila 5y ago
Just a few seconds of not paying attention are enough when a dog gets excited. I walk a cat -on a leash- and dogs without a leash are a real problem to be on the lookout for at all times.

smcl 5y ago

Can I ask where you're from? This might be a cultural difference. I mentioned originally in another comment (then removed it as it looked a bit hostile) that this might be something more US-centric as it hasn't been a problem anywhere I've seen in Europe. I don't mean to bash the USA here, but I think there might be more "this is a free country and I can do what I want..." types over there who (if they have a dog) are more likely to not be considerate of others or respond aggressively when confronted about such behaviour. We'd be talking in cliches and stereotypes of course, but I imagine that sort of person is antisocial generally. I dunno, I'm just trying to rationalize the stark differences in our experiences because here dog owners are by and large extremely considerate.

blamazon 5y ago
I think we’re already past cliches and stereotypes when talking of all dog owners who walk without a leash! I’m from USA. On the same page with you here about the collectivist vs individual freedom. As you noted it’s a tragedy of the commons—-because unquestioned individual freedom is prized so heavily in USA, some dog owners take advantage of it without appropriate precaution, and those people tend to do things like call the police on black people, or scare and injure children by accident with their dogs, and these incidents correspondingly build our stereotype of off-leashers. Ironically this also leads to laws and rules and a general social attitude that restrict our individual freedom to walk dogs off leash. In that way, Europeans are more ‘individually free’ on this topic because, as you note, off leash dog walking is totally normal over there because people wouldn’t think of doing it without appropriate control of their dog. Interesting to think about the tension and paradoxes between individual and collectivist freedoms. But, you probably have some annoying dog tax ;)
- smcl 5y ago
  We actually do have such a tax! And I'm glad you reminded me because my residency status changed meaning that I now need to start paying this :D The tax is from the local municipality, and I think it’s for upkeep of some dog infrastructure - dedicated dog parks, bins with little bags. It’s not much

musingsole 5y ago

> We have no idea whether your dogs are properly trained or not. This is interesting to me because we have no such assurances about other humans either. But acting on the fear that a given human isn't adequately trained and restrained is labeled with every variant of ignorance.

SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
We do ban humans from certain spaces and limit humans behaviors and ability to travel without restriction or direct watch though.
blamazon 5y ago
Such are the ethical pitfalls that we fall into when one species decides to domesticate and selectively breed another species for thousands of years. The subjugation is baked in already, literally in their DNA.
v-yadli 5y ago
I'll probably be more confident about a dog if: - It's well dressed instead of naked - It walks on two feet - It speaks English ... And vice versa.