I'm going to hazard a guess as to why the downvotes are happening: There's a silent majority out there who are not happy with the way dog owners behave, which i

I'm going to hazard a guess as to why the downvotes are happening: There's a silent majority out there who are not happy with the way dog owners behave, which is very often badly. Most of the time they have no real power to do anything about it, but it's occasionally visible in places like this with karma systems. In my experience, most dog owners are like the user who started this thread. They do what they want, having their dog constantly off leash in areas where it's clearly not allowed, and then rationalize it to themselves with something like "well my dog's well behaved and would never hurt a fly!" It's incredibly inconsiderate to both the environment (dogs are constantly chasing and damaging wildlife, a lot of poop gets left behind as the owner is walking off in front and doesn't notice) and other people (many people don't like dogs, dogs are dangerous for bicyclists and small kids, and some people have smaller dogs who they don't want strange dogs interacting with), and indeed the badly behaved dog owner will see signs of this on a daily basis, but chooses to consciously ignore all of them by pretending none of it's happening. Dog culture around the Bay Area where I am has reached peak absurd. With more dogs in SF now than kids, people treat their dogs like they would human children. Off leash dogs in on leash or even no dog areas is the norm. At least a few times a week I'll see an off leash dog to something bad to a person or another dog, and the owner pretend-chastise them with a, "ooohhhhh Fido, silly dog, don't do that" (but in a sweet tone so the dog is not actually being chastised) followed by a "he doesn't normally do that". You know of course that Fido does normally do that on a consistent basis, and the owner is pretending Fido doesn't because they really don't care. It's frustrating to me, and probably frustrating to other people on here too. There's no real enforcement anywhere, so the only thing we can do is ask dog owners to put their animals back on leash, which will be ignored. It's like fighting entropy at this point, and if you're anything like me, you sort of wish nebulously that people would just be better.