A few weeks ago, I was walking home with my Siberian Husky after a nice neighborhood walk. Suddenly, I hear some heavy barking, and a pit-bull charges out from one of my neighbor’s backyard and starts barking at us crazily.
If he were a truly aggressive pit-bull, we would have been toast.
Instead, I backed away from him slowly and shouted out to my neighbor. Of course, he was doing yard work at the time, and did not hear me over the noise of his lawn mower. He had left his gate open so that he could get easy access to his recycling bin.
Dude! … I mean really?!
Luckily another neighbor heard me, came out, and secured the dog.
Several days later, I was charged by an Akita. She came over, and started bullying my Husky girl. A boy came running after the dog, and then just stood there. He did not know what to do.
I raised my voice and said Stop to the Akita, which surprisingly, she did. Maybe she was just momentarily startled. I asked the boy to please remove his dog, but he just hit his dog on the muzzle. Since the dog did not have a collar on, the boy was unable to effectively remove her.
However, since the Akita was no longer focused on my dog, I was able to move away, and then Akita Inu finally followed the boy home.
Dude! … I mean really?!
And then today, I was charged by a large Labrador. He was being walked off-leash in the neighborhood even though he had 0% recall.
Then one of the owners said, “Don’t worry, he is not aggressive”.
Another one said, “I am doing off-leash training with my dog and I did not see you.”
Dude! … I mean really?!
- Point – Someone who lets an untrained dog run about off-leash in public neighborhood streets has no understanding of dogs. I very much doubt they know whether their dog is aggressive or not.
- Point – Leaving a dog with no recall, off-leash, is dangerous to other people, other dogs, and to the dog himself. There are not too many cars in my neighborhood, but all it takes is just one.
- Point – Perhaps the Labrador is not aggressive, but then my dog could be aggressive. In which case, a fight could have broken out when the Labrador invaded my dog’s space and forced a butt sniff on her.
- Point – One DOES NOT do off-leash training on public neighborhood streets. Find a private enclosed area to start recall training, and once the dog is more advanced, take him to an off-leash hiking park.
What to Do When Charged by Off-Leash Neighborhood Dogs?
I usually just ignore the owners and walk away as soon as they get control of their dog.
I don’t really want to converse with them, because I would likely lose my temper and that would upset the dogs even more.
I am not sure if that is the best thing to do though. I would like to try and convince them not to leave their untrained dogs running around off-leash.
What do you think?
- What do you do when charged by off-leash neighborhood dogs?
- How do we get our neighbors to keep untrained dogs on a leash?
In our city it seems to be the same people with the same unrestrained dogs that never get the message. I can be nice, or I can be angry, or I can try to educate them and it really never gets through to them. The same giant goofball lab mix was roaming loose again yesterday morning. Thankfully, I saw her at a distance before she saw us and made Ziva change direction (which she is completely against on her morning walks). The tragedy is going to be when someone creams that poor dog with a car at 45 mph trying to get to work. I don’t know how to stop it. I absolutely cannot conceive of letting Ziva loose on her own downtown.
So funny… I stumbled across your site after just now doing a google search “dogs should be kept on leash”. I just came back from a walk in my neighborhood and my cocker spaniel was attacked by an enormous “marmaduke” (have no idea what kind of dog that but it’s at least 5 feet tall) who was off-leash, no owner in sight. I heard this beast charging at us and starting screaming in his face. In hindsight, I am laughing at the whole thing, but it was terrifying. My little guy hates being on-leash while being sniffed by off-leash dogs, even when they are on-leash he hates having his space invaded. Anyway, the two started to get aggressive and at that point I got right into the dogs face and started screaming at him some more. An off-duty fireman comes out of nowhere (gotta love firemen!) with a large shovel ready to fend off marmaduke, who afterwards left the scene sans any sight of an owner. I thought the off-duty fireman was his owner and told him he really needs to get control of his beast of a dog. He laughed and told me he was a fireman who heard me screaming. LOL. I am home now laughing at the whole thing, but given it’s happened so many times before this incident, I’ve really just had it and needed to see if this sort of thing happens in other places as much as I’m seeing it where I live. It’s just infuriating!!!
Always good to have a fireman live nearby! 😉
I agree. It is absolutely infuriating. It wouldn’t be so bad if the owners made an effort to fix things once they got the information, but sometimes, they just ignore everyone and do what is convenient for themselves.
The only way to fix it then is to make it inconvenient for them to ignore everyone else and shirk their responsibility to their dog.
also, I wish these people would get a clue that “he’s friendly”! doesn’t much matter when your dog is leashed and their digog not. No dog is comfortable being restrained in the presence of a strange, unrestrained dog. I’ve started explaining this to people by saying, “if you were tied up, how comfortable would you be with some unrestrained big guy rushing toward you at top speed and making loud noises”?
Agree with you 100%. I get really pissed because the more we get charged, the more uncomfortable my Sibe becomes with other dogs. It is very bad conditioning.
Do you usually get repeat charging from the same people? Or do they stop once they realize that it is not fair to have off-leash dogs invade the space of an on-leash dog?
Same here–I live in a small town smack in the middle of downtown. It’s a pretty place–very historic, but also with surprisingly busy traffic, staring early in the morning. Lately, especially since it’s gotten cold here, I’ve noticed more and more people just letting there dogs out of the front door by themselves and closing the doors behind them. My Shiba girl is only 19 pounds and petite, but like all Shibas thinks she’s a very large dog. She didn’t much like being reminded that she’s short by a huge lab mix yesterday morning. The dog, goofy and non-agressive, just wanted to play, but her looming over Ziva brought on some serious growling on Ziva’s part. The dog just wouldn’t quit–kept circling us and looming, sniffing. No sign of the owner ANYWHERE (turns out she was inside, just across the street). Finally, I just had to give up. I picked up my dog and walked with her like that for 6 – 7 blocks until we were well clear of the goofball. Thank God the dog wasn’t agressive–it could have been really ugly.
It’s nice to read I’m not the only one extremely annoyed by people walking their untrained dogs off leash. Having 2 huskies and one shiba, and walking them all at the same time, it gets very hard for me to keep things under control when we get charged by off leash dogs. My huskies are friendly, but extremely strong and enthusiastic when a dog comes into their ‘space’ so I have repeatedly almost gotten my arm jerked off 🙁 My shiba is not very tolerant of having other dogs invading his private space and unfortunately he will attack if the dog persists. So picture the following scenario:
We (1 human female, with 2 huskies and 1 shiba on leash) leave our backyard and are almost immediately charged by 2 dogs, large but not agressive, just way too high energy. Husky #1 (extremely tall male for a husky) immediately jumps on the first dog to show dominance, husky #2 (sweet female) starts rolling over for the newly arrived male and the newly arrived male starts sniffing the shiba. So here I am, trying to hold on to the leashes of the huskies while trying to block new male dog from getting to close to my shiba and at the same time trying to block my shiba from going anywhere. I start looking around for the owner of the dogs, who only just realized what’s going on. First thing she says is that her dogs are friendly. I respond by saying mine are not. Even though that just applies to shiba, she doesn’t know that and I figure it may make her move faster. She starts calling her dogs, who completely ignore her. At least new male dog has lost interest in shiba and starts running back and forth driving female husky crazy. Male husky is still busy establishing dominance with the other dog, and has it pinned down now. Owner starts walking slowly towards us, while I urge her again to get her dogs away from mine. In the mean time shiba and new male are facing off again. You can imagine my blood pressure rising, especially because the owner is absolutely not impressed and shows no signs of responsibility for the situation. It seriously takes her a good 3 minutes to get to her dogs and at least get them out of my dogs’ space.
Since this was about the fourth time this happened with this lady and her dogs I once again told her that I would really appreciate it if she could keep her dogs on leash in the area behind our house because, although my dogs are perfectly well behaved on walks, if their space gets invaded and they get excited, they just are too strong for me, especially if they catch me off guard.
I had no success in convincing her and she still walks them off leash, but now I make sure I scope out the area just before I exit the yard and if she’s there I wait until she sees me and leaves or leashes her dogs. Ugh…
Love reading your stories by the way 😀
Yeah I did not realize this was such a widespread issue.
Seems like we should be able to do something about it.
Plan A – Shame them into shaping up. Make a short 1 page pamphlet, hopefully with a lot of stuff from the Humane Society. My neighbors may not listen to me, but maybe they will listen to the Humane Society. Then I can hand them out when I get charged by a dog.
Plan B – Embarrassment is a strong motivator. Use an air horn. This will call attention to their irresponsible behavior, and they will likely get embarrassed by it. This will hopefully encourage them to leash up to avoid future embarrassment.
Plan C – Avoid them when possible. I also really like Marije’s suggestion.
My pet peeve too. My shiba Maddy has been attacked 4 times by off leash dogs. 2 different german shepherds and a golden Lab and a retriever . Twice involving vet visits and antibiotics and maddy always hiding under the bed for a day. Needless to say she is scared when she sees a big dog approaching and I get ready to kick. The owners are always very contrite but it burns me up. These incidents were not when hiking where off leash dogs seem to be okay but just walking in the neighborhood where I suspect they feel territorial.
Ooh! This just burns me up, too! People should have to have some kind of minimal training before getting a dog.
Okay, I really don’t think that, because I’m a Libertarian.
But, seriously, dogs are potentially killing machines! You have to get a license for a CAR, you have to get a license for a GUN. If you don’t train it right ithe dog will get mixed signals or become hostile or possibly untrainable. Nobody wins in that scenario.
I love dogs. The stupid things I see people do with them and how they either mistreat or mis-train them just gets me all uppity. Thanks for this site! People need to know these things!
This is absolutely one of my hugest PET PEEVES. For the majority of Snick’s life, we lived in midtown Manhattan and this was not a problem. However, we lived in Indiana for 7 months and could not walk outside. We were literally chased into the house by two huge dogs while walking towards the street in our own driveway. Now we’re in Mississippi and, again, we cannot walk outside. My daughter can walk her dog outside because, luckily the multiple off leash dogs in the neighborhood really ARE friendly. I, however, cannot. Snickers is fine off leash in dog parks, but if he’s leashed and another dog approaches him, all bets are off. I’m afraid will encounter a large, off leash dog one day and Snick will end up mortally injured. All we can do is play in the yard. Snick is bored and gaining weight and it sucks beyond measure.
“Don’t worry, s/he’s friendly!”
I hate that phrase. If I’m feeling snappish, I usually shoot back, “You have no idea if my dog is friendly or not!”
I usually walk away too. There’s just too much potential for me to start saying and doing things I may officially regret later.
LOL, I like that.
Yeah, Sephy is very similar. He is very particular about certain things like no butt sniffing without permission. I am not sure what would have happened if I was walking Sephy instead of Shania yesterday. I think I would back up close to the fence and try to block the other dog from going around Sephy. It would not be a good situation.
I was thinking that maybe it would help if I collected some information about local neighborhood leash laws, as well as some articles from the Humane Society about leaving dogs off-leash in the neighborhood. Then I can make copies and stuff it in the mailbox of some of my neighbors.
Not sure if they would care to read it … but maybe some of them will.
Another possibility is to drop by their house and have a chat about it. Not sure which is better, or to just leave it alone.
On the positive side, I haven’t had further issues with the pit bull or Akita, so maybe the silent treatment works best.
At our Cabin there are a lot of roaming dogs but hopefully for us they are all nice but we have no idea xho they belong to!
That is very interesting. A few weeks ago, I actually met two coyotes while hiking. That was majorly SCARY! 😀
I was walking, walking, and then suddenly I saw several bright eyes looking out at me from a dark part of the valley. Yikes!
But the thing is, wild animals do not usually approach humans. The coyotes were likely protecting their kill or maybe their young, so I just quietly backed out of there. And today I saw a fox in someone’s front lawn. He didn’t approach us either.