What problems do you come across when walking dogs?

zaxdog

What drives me round the twist is the beaches here are fine for dogs in the autumn and winter but come the tourist season they are banned from our favourite and closest beaches so the manky tourists and their sticky children (I know not all of them are like this but it sure feels that way sometimes) descend on the beach. Within a few days it is covered with litter, broken glass and soiled nappies.

And guess who spend the winter clearing up the rusty cans etc, yep the evil dog walkers :eek:

dontone

Anybody else has this?

On Sunday me and my Mam and my dog went down to her local pond to feed the ducks and swans.
It's a man made pond IYSWIM, they have dug out pathways and a bridge. The paths are quite narrow, and on the way back we came across a man with two little girls all riding bikes.
My dog absolutely HATES bikes near him, so just as the path was reaching the narrowest point we moved to the small, grassy verge at the side and told the man that he could go past with his kids and we will wait.
Course, what happened was is that the oldest child went past and went "aaaww" when doing so and my dog ignored the bike, but then the youngest child decided to stop directly across from us, and my dog went a bit panicky and yapped at the bike. So the child decided to scream her head off. My dog then wagged his tail and the kid's (we were a good 5 feet away) dad came up and in a really clever tone said "Tell you what, YOU go past and we'll wait" Course my dog is now in a real panic about another bike, they were at the narrowest point, and wouldn't move, so we ended up closer than I wanted to be, and it took a lot to drag him away.
I actually found myself apologising and shouting "my dog hates bikes, that's why WE waited for you to pass" My mother was furious at the fella and the kid for stopping, and causing a fuss. If they had just rode past, all would have been ok.
While we might have been a bit at fault, it seems that sometimes, having a dog on a lead and being a bit polite proves that dog owners can't win.

GlasweJen

Mutely wears a muzzle when she's out, a high via vest saying "hearing dog in training" a high vis strip on her lead saying "please do not feed me, assistance dog in training" and people still stop us to pet her! And she's really not a social dog at all so she doesn't enjoy the attention and it makes her nervous.

She's a rescue and had we think comes from a puppy farm so it's taking a lot of work and idiots keep annoying her when she is clearly out on training walks.

Sharon140

Both my dogs were girls and while the youngest one cocks her leg to pee (she has never worked out how to be a lady :rotfl:) the oldest one (sadly passed away 4 months ago ) always peed crouching down on the floor as !!!!!es do. The amount of time I had people screaming at me to pick up the dog poo was unbelievable it led to quite a few shouting matches over the years with me trying to explain the difference between a girl and a boy dog to quite a few unpleasant individuals

Welshwoofs

Some bug-bears of mine:

• Public rights of way in the countryside that aren't really accessible to anyone with any mobility issues or anyone with a dog who's too big to pick up/can't jump. I've encountered more rickety stiles than I care to mention..and I have to turn back each time. More kissing gates!
• Not enough dog poop bins round in general and the fact they're all manual opening.
• Retail dog poops bags are flimsy...not built for the output of a giant breed!
• Modern estate cars are all streamlined with really slopey backs...again, if you have big dogs they're cramped in the boot!
• Another giant breed owner bug-bear - buying robust collars that will go round a 28-30" dog neck is near-on impossible. I have to get most of mine hand-made by saddlers.
• Motor way service stations are often dog-unfriendly. By that I mean often nowhere to tie a dog (and they're never allowed inside), often nowhere to walk them, no dog bins and if you get lucky and there's a bowl for water outside, it's often empty and there's nowhere to fill it.

Johnmcl7

I have a very good scooper (worryingly I can't find any for sale at the moment) which unlike most others I've used works reliably, just bend down, scoop it up in one go and it's done with. Wouldn't be without it. Up here they're very good at providing dog bins so they're not available on most walks in the built up areas where I go but there's a good number of them as well so you don't need to carry it with you for long.

With that in mind one of my main annoyances is people not picking up after their dogs particularly when there's a lot of leaves on the ground and it's hard to see what you're stepping on. There's been quite a few times this winter when I've ended up stepping on it while stepping through the grass to either pick up my dog's business or put it in a dog bin. It should be picked up anyway but when there's plenty of bins around it makes it all the more annoying, it's a pain to clean off shoes as it gets right into the treads and some people tend to brand all dog owners the same as they're sick of stepping in or rolling wheels over it.

Even worse though is horse poo though which is another annoyance, for some bizarre reason horse owners think it's ok for their horses to take a massive dump right in the middle of a walking path and leave it there. I realise they can't scoop it up but at least they could carry a folding shovel or similar and move it off the path. Apart from it being disgusting in the middle of the path, my last dog would roll in it which was bad but the current one when he was young would try to eat it which thankfully he has stopped. Some of the forest paths around here ban motorbikes due to the damage the path which is fair enough but again, horse owners are fine to take their horses through and completely destroy the path worse than any motorbike could. I'm not an anti-horse person, just get frustrating that there's times of the year I have to stop going to certain walks which I like because they've been torn up and dumped all over by horses, just seems completely inconsiderate to me.

The amount of rubbish dropped by people is a problem, my dog used to like picking up cardboard and similar which highlighted just how much rubbish there was but the more serious problem is people with takeaways who then just dump the remains on the ground as they go along. If it's in tall grass the dog will inevitably spot it before me and if he's fast manage to wolf some of it down before I grab him which at various times has left him with an upset stomach. There's a lovely beach at the north of Loch Ness which I just can't go to during summer as there's so many people go there for a BBQ and find it acceptable to leave absolutely everything just with a layer of stones over it, if even that. The previous dog was obsessed by the water so it wasn't an issue but the first time the current one went there he immediately started to try and eat all the leftovers so can't walk there.

Broken glass is also another frustrating one particularly in summer when people just seem to leave smashed bottles all over the place which at times means having to completely alter the walking route to a less suitable one to avoid the glass.

Also don't like people who have potentially aggressive dogs that don't keep them on the lead, both the current and previous dog have been attacked multiple times by dogs that should have been on the lead and muzzled. I know muzzled dogs look bad but if I was at all concerned my dog would attack another, I would have a muzzle on it as I'd hate to think of him hurting another dog. The current dog is a bit of a wimp, completely submissive (leading most people to assume he is a girl and asking 'her' name) but he tends to be very enthusiastic and friendly when meeting other people and their dogs so when he was very young I tended to keep him on the lead so he didn't hassle people. These days he's much better at just walking on unless another dog comes up to him and wants to play.

John

Psychaley

I usually walk my dogs down the canal but I find that the path is getting full of dog muck, mainly because there aren't any bins there; unfortunately one person has taken it upon themselves to "solve the problem" by putting small parcels of poisoned meat along the path and a few dogs have now died.

There have been a lot of dog thefts around my area lately, usually dogs are taken from gardens but some have been snatched from their owners as they're being walked. This combined with the canal situation has made me wary of actually walking my dogs.

Other dogs being off their leads can be a problem, if they're well behaved and supervised then it's fine but I've been in the park and had dogs run up and jump all over me and my dogs and their owners have been at the opposite end of the park totally unaware of where their dog is!

Leven

Occasionally, my fun loving young labrador will attempt to 'join in' on a game of ball with another dog. I always distract him and call him back (he has a good recall) but I sometimes am not able to recall before he actually retrieves the ball. At this point (this is the annoying bit), the owner of the other dog/s will say something like "its not your ball" and get huffy. My dog is trained to advanced standards and would happily hand it back to this person if they asked, instead of getting ratty with him.

Anyhow, the bit that annoys me the most is that these people assume that dogs understand the concept of ownership in the same way as a human does. For goodness sake - from my dog's perspective he is simply joining in with a fun game!

suki1964

Johnmcl7 wrote: »

Even worse though is horse poo though which is another annoyance, for some bizarre reason horse owners think it's ok for their horses to take a massive dump right in the middle of a walking path and leave it there. I realise they can't scoop it up but at least they could carry a folding shovel or similar and move it off the path. Apart from it being disgusting in the middle of the path, my last dog would roll in it which was bad but the current one when he was young would try to eat it which thankfully he has stopped. Some of the forest paths around here ban motorbikes due to the damage the path which is fair enough but again, horse owners are fine to take their horses through and completely destroy the path worse than any motorbike could. I'm not an anti-horse person, just get frustrating that there's times of the year I have to stop going to certain walks which I like because they've been torn up and dumped all over by horses, just seems completely inconsiderate to me

John

You do know that because horses are vegetarian there is sod all on their poo that will cause you or your dog any problem

Nor do your shoes stink in you walk in it, indeed because its veggie it will usually have worked off on the walk home

Not that i like to walk through it myself but I'm just saying its easily spotted so avoided unlike dog poo and isn't a health risk, unlike dog poo

Shepherd1

suki1964 wrote: »

You do know that because horses are vegetarian there is sod all on their poo that will cause you or your dog any problem

Nor do your shoes stink in you walk in it, indeed because its veggie it will usually have worked off on the walk home

Not that i like to walk through it myself but I'm just saying its easily spotted so avoided unlike dog poo and isn't a health risk, unlike dog poo

Totally untrue, where I live quite recently a dog died after eating some horse poo. The horse had recently been given medication not sure if it was wormer or not but please don't let your dog eat horse poo (not that most would but I know some would)