venting about dog owners in my neighborhood

I’m constantly frustrated with the other dog owners in my neighborhood.  literally, almost constantly.

I found out from steve at my last training session that my block in gloucester city is notorious for bad, loose dogs.  steve suggested I either get a tread mill or a long walking stick for the summertime because he gets so many calls about stray or loose dogs that he’s down on my block at least once a week!

I came across a loose dog a few weeks ago.  he was huge… looked like a mastiff mix.  and he ran out into the middle of the sidewalk in front of wally and me one day when we were out on a walk.  thank god for my dog whisperer obsession, for many reasons, but this time because cesar taught me how to deal with an unfamiliar dog.  I immediately put wally behind me, and turned sideways from the dog.  I didn’t turn my back to him, but just turned sideways and didn’t make eye contact so that he knew I wasn’t trying to threaten him, but I also wasn’t going to back away.  after he barked at me a few times, he ran off into what I learned was his back yard.  wally and I finished our walk uneventfully.

a couple of weeks ago, joe told me he heard that dog got out again.  this time, though, he attacked a guy and his little chihuahua.  we found out last week that the chihuahua ended up dying from the attack.  since then, I haven’t walked down that way for fear of him getting out and decided that he gave us a free pass last time.  I haven’t gotten a walking stick yet, but I have invested in pepper spray just in case I do end up coming across a dog that doesn’t decide we’re too much trouble to take a piece out of.

this is just one isolated incident, though.  I have neighbors all along my street who have dogs and never put them on leashes.  most of the dogs are harmless, but with wally’s dog aggression it’s just not safe to have other dogs coming up to him without a leash to pull them away on.  nothing is more annoying than an owner shouting from 20 yards away, “oh, he won’t bite you!”  well, that’s good to know, but what if my dog decides to bite?!  jeez, it’s so frustrating!

I hardly ever see anyone out actually walking their dogs on leashes, most of the time I see dogs in their yards.  they bark incessantly and aggressively as we walk by and all I can think is how sorry I feel for those dogs.  they don’t get enough exercise or mental stimulation, which is why they go absolutely ape shit when they see people walk by.  it’s the only outlet they have!  so I try not to take it personally when dogs bark at us like that, but it still makes me sad.

it figures that I moved onto the most notorious bad dog block known to camden county animal control… that just seems to be the way my luck is sometimes.