visitng houses with dogs - safety?

ChrisCobra

sleepymy wrote: »

I think it's a sad state of affairs that someone wants others to put signs up because they want to stick unsolicited mail though their door. You are creating your own problem by calling at people's houses uninvited.

I dont think she gets it , an armed guard would probably have to do it. I thought most people who moved to the country did so for the quiet

Welshwoofs

welshbabe88 wrote: »

Well I think its a sad state of affairs if people want to be insular and locked in behind their gates. We did have a family here once like that - who insisted n padlocking their gate all the time - but at least we knew how they felt and left them alone.
Sorry if I've generated the wrong sort of responses - I do see that those of you in towns are inundated with stuff so might feel different. Apart from the postman no-one dumps junk stuff on us here.

I live in a very rural Welsh village of a couple of hundred houses (if that) and we're constantly bombarded with flyers etc through the letterbox, including the local newsletter. Unfortunately I do find that whilst the deliverer may think that I'm going to be wetting myself in excitement at news of the latest Scouts jumble, the case is that I'm not. I'd rather learn about community events from the post office window or community hall notice board than have yet more crap to recycle posted through my door. On the subject of dogs, if mine is out he's out and it's tough. He'll certainly bark at visitors as he's a guard breed, but he'd not attack. We do have signs saying we own a dog. We also have a sign saying 'no junk mail'.... people just choose to ignore them

C_Mababejive

Morgan_Ree wrote: »

If when you enter a house a dog insists on jumping all over you or behaves in an aggressive way then use your head and refuse to go any further until the owner has proper control over it

There really is no need to have a no-win-no-fee type company on speedial

I agree but sometimes its too late by then.

If i had a boisterous or even vicious dog,the first thing id do before opening the door to any legitimate caller would be to put it in another place so that it would not have access to the caller.

Unfortunately,litigation is now the modern way of teaching manners and acceptable standards of behaviour here in blighty.

mikey72

I used to deliver milk, back before supermarket days, dogs don't worry me, but it was policy not to go up the path if you didn't like the dog, and report it when you got back. We had quite a few dog owners complaining the milkman had missed them. They soon got told why, and told to go somewhere else.
(Funniest post on here a while back, a postman had put a parcel inside an open door, and the owners dog chewed it up, the dogowner wanted advice on how to claim compensation as the postman should have knocked, and given it to them, and shouldn't have left it where the dog could get it:rotfl:)

ALIBOBSY

To save costs in the long run couldn't you include a phone number and email so if people either don't want the newsletter delivered at all or would prefer an electronic version they could let you know-ask them to opt out or for email. You could say due to costs you can no longer deliver via post after this letter and due to health and safety concerns cannot enter any gardens where a dog is loose. This gives them the option to get the info if they want, and not if they prefer. Copies could be displayed locally anyway as well.

I live in a semi rural area and last year delivered some council leaflets (for the next years bin collection dates). The houses with dogs in the garden invariably had a post box outside. There was one, a farmhouse that had a dog loose and no box so I shouted over the fence hello! a few times and passed the notice over to the farmer who appeared around the corner. He was very nice actually and glad I hadn't missed him out, but his dog was there to stop people going in. If I had been doing leaflets or something not official I would have missed them out, not worth the risk.

This year the binmen did the leaflets so they could just stick them under the bin handle in those situations, and I assume saved the council some cash.

ali x

emmell

welshbabe88 wrote: »

Well I think its a sad state of affairs if people want to be insular and locked in behind their gates. We did have a family here once like that - who insisted n padlocking their gate all the time - but at least we knew how they felt and left them alone.
Sorry if I've generated the wrong sort of responses - I do see that those of you in towns are inundated with stuff so might feel different. Apart from the postman no-one dumps junk stuff on us here.

I don't live in a town. I live in a village with a reasonably busy road outside my house,the fence and gates are there to protect my dogs and passing motorists from loose dogs running out on to the road. My dogs are not used to being out of the garden unless on their leads, if someone leaves the gate open and my dogs get out then chances are they are going to get hurt. I also have young nieces that visit and they are just as vunerable to a gate left open and the consequences.
As I said before, I don't let my dogs out on their own until either the postman has been or I think it is safe to assume he's not coming.
I am a responsible dog owner, all we need now is to teach leaflet distributors to be responsible also, it's easy, open the gate carefully, close the gate, put the leaflet in the letterbox, open the gate, exit, then close and secure the gate behind you. If my dogs are out they will make a fuss of said leaflet distributor and be a little miffed when they have gone as to why they hadn't come to play ball.
ML.

welshbabe88

emmell wrote: »

I am a responsible dog owner, all we need now is to teach leaflet distributors to be responsible also, it's easy, open the gate carefully, close the gate, put the leaflet in the letterbox, open the gate, exit, then close and secure the gate behind you.ML.

I agree - visitors have the responsibility too to close gates - be it for pets or children.

Quote - To save costs in the long run couldn't you include a phone number and email so if people either don't want the newsletter delivered at all or would prefer an electronic version they could let you know-ask them to opt out or for email
We do do an electronic version if anyone wants and its also on the village website. The only reason really that we wanted to do the paper copies is for the older folk who may not be on the internet etc. Lots of the info has already been on the website but we didn't wnat the others in the village to be left out.
Having said that no-one said they wanted the email version rather than the paper copy.

I also agree people have every right to live as they please - including not wanting to be part of the community if they so wish.

Perhaps I'm a bit old fashioned but I do think its nice to know your neighbours and this is a way of bringing people together - in a scattered community you often don't see people for weeks - everyone off in their cars - but we do try, and when you see people doing our deliveries they love to stop for chats.

Quote - You are creating your own problem by calling at people's houses uninvited.
If none of us called on anyone without an invite how would be ever make the acquaintance of newcomers? This is only twice yearly and we don't pester people. We're not busybodies prying into peoples's lives every day.

neilmcl

I'm all for commumity spirit and I agree its good to bring people together but I don't think your earlier statement of

welshbabe88 wrote: »

If people want dogs thats fine - but don't inflict them on others.

was particularly community minded and certainly got up the nose of a few people here.

welshbabe88

Quote -was particularly community minded and certainly got up the nose of a few people here.
Sorry if it came across wrong - its so easy to give the wrong impression on forums when no harm was intended.

sleepymy

welshbabe88 wrote: »

I also agree people have every right to live as they please - including not wanting to be part of the community if they so wish.

Oh come on, you're basically saying your bi-annual newsletter is making people part of the community, exaggeration much? :rolleyes:

Quote - You are creating your own problem by calling at people's houses uninvited.
If none of us called on anyone without an invite how would be ever make the acquaintance of newcomers? This is only twice yearly and we don't pester people. We're not busybodies prying into peoples's lives every day.

Here's an idea, wait until you're invited, that's how most people gauge whether their company is wanted or not. My post didn't say anything about you being a pester or being a busybody, you're just exaggerating to try and justify your original stance... which was complaining about having to deal with dogs when you invited yourself onto other people's property.

Instead of moving the goalposts try accepting the fact that if you call uninvited to people's houses and are met by boisterous dogs, you just have to suck it up or stop doing it.