Dog Ragers
“Could you please call your dog?”
“He just wants to say, Hi!”
“Please put your dog on a leash! He’s scaring my puppy!”
“You BITCH!”
Recognize yourself or an experience you have had? Not a day goes by that I am not approached by someone with a story about someone else’s off leash dog that has not only approached, but aggressed their dog or puppy that is on a leash. Another one is someone afraid of dogs walking by themselves without a dog and the person with the dog allows their dog to jump or bully.
When someone with a puppy on a leash asks another to please call their dog, the response is, “Oh he just wants to say hello!” All the while the dog comes screaming up to the puppy, huffing, hackling and barking. Somewhere along the line, appropriate, courteous greeting has been lost. NEVER SHOULD A LARGE ADULT DOG GO RUNNING UP TO A YOUNG PUPPY or ANY DOG FULL SPEED! It is rude, bully behavior! YES, that big dog is a bully and its owner an enabler! Seriously, how hard is it to see a puppy or even someone without a dog, call your dog, then put a leash on him for a few minutes until the puppy or individual passes?
Then, there is the name calling?!! I can’t tell you all the stories I hear about someone who is asked to call their dog or leash their dog then calling the other person a “bitch” or getting in the asker’s face with snide comments or threats. REALLY??? Are we a community of so called “dog lovers” that can’t be kind to others – people or other dogs? This is so hypocritical it’s ridiculous!
Then, I find poop bags filled with poop just sitting out in the middle of the Ketchum Festival Park, as if there is some POOP FAIRY that is going to come along and pick it up!!! One of my clients found a full poop bag on Trail Creek with a dollar under it!!! PLEASE!?? Paying someone to do their dirty work? This is LUDICRUS and such a horrible display of who our community is!
I got a new puppy in January that I was going to take out of my van while I was working to do a little socializing and there, next to the van at Rotary Park in the parking lot are no fewer than 8 piles of dog crap in various stages of decomposition!!!! Needless to say, I never got her out of the van. I was not going to expose my puppy to such filth. If she had been my child, I would have made it a lesson about what responsible dog ownership is.
I am not going to win any popularity contests with this article, but I have to say I am ASHAMED at the behaviors of so many dog owners of this valley!!!
Let’s just be KIND AND THOUGHTFUL to each other with our dogs! Let’s teach our dogs, like our children to be respectful of others and their right to share the trails! It’s not hard and so much fun when people can again appreciate the dogs in this valley for their good behaviors!
