no, but I’ll walk up a mountain with one. I’d much prefer that than a visit Le Gabollocks for dinner thanks.
But ownership and breeds do need to be managed better for sure. I’ve no issue there, it’s only right and as far as dogs plus kids are concerned, ANY dog can be a threat in that environment. Same in areas with livestock.
In my area we have a massive problem with dog crap on the pavements. I’d be willing to bet that much of that is also down to the local fuckwits with their over muscled pitbull breeds that strut round looking for status.
On the flipside I think we also struggle with areas to go with dogs. In the Summer much of the beaches here in Wales ban dogs other than in small areas, free livestock everywhere etc. It can be difficult to find a place where its safe to let them get a good run. Dog crap on beaches are a problem but fuck me the humans are far worse for leaving shit all over the place. Apparently that’s fine
I have lived around and owned staffies since I was a child (not recently). Temperamentally they are brilliant with children.
They temperamentally are also pretty aggressive to other dogs. I’ve had a female and male staffy at the same time and I actually had to keep them separated at times due to the female being overly aggressive (pinning down the male by the neck and not letting go until we could somehow separate them. That right there is a risk to a human as the separation part could mean an accidental bite. A toddler in the middle of that would be a disaster.
Then outside temperament we have the problem of people using dog breeds as a symbol of status. This can mean encouraging aggression in the dog. So temperament will go out the window. And you can effectively have a breed brilliant around humans turn into something nasty. Staffies aren’t exactly a big breed so bigger ones are an even greater risk.
To be honest, I would never own a large dog. I don’t understand the purpose of owning something that eats 3 times what I eat (why throw money away??), shits 3 times what I do that I have to clean up, and is a risk to humans and other dogs, especially if its so big its difficult to control. It doesn’t matter what breed to me. I wouldn’t even take a risk on something like a St Bernard or a Bernese (wife loves that breed).
I actually helped an old lady get her pram onto the High Speed train into London once. It was a proper newborn one. I only realised once I put it down that it contained a little toy dog. Totally duped.
My reasoning doesn’t translate into the UK context. We wanted a dog that a coyote would look at and think ‘Oh, fuck no’. This was a couple of doors away last month.
The amount of people I know purchasing dogs post lockdown, hell, post economy meltdown, leaves me shaking my head. Trying to show everyone that will listen how cute their puppy is. Do people know how fucking high maintenance a dog is? It’s literally like having another child, except even more inconvenient because you can’t just drag it along with you most times and have to find an (expensive) sitter.
Actually, wolves are not fond of people. They stay far away. In the summer I hear wolves every night up at the lake, and in 40+ years I have seen them twice. They were absolutely beautiful, I never felt a sense of danger. Maybe in a time when food was really scarce, but normal behaviour is they move away when they see you. I am sure I have been seen dozens of times, just based on seeing their tracks.
Coyotes are far more comfortable living in direct contact with humans, and somewhat more aggressive as well. That is a problem, because opportunities are orders of magnitude closer and more numerous. For clarity, those photos are in an urban environment. Coyotes will attack humans, and will prey on smaller pets. Most will give an adult a wide berth. but the neighbourhood free range cats are not as numerous as they were a few years ago. Children might be vulnerable, hence valuing our girl’s territorial and protective instincts when the boys were out in the yard.
What is becoming problematic is the two species are interbreeding - which is very odd considering that wolves were the species that kept coyotes in check. Coyotes are not native to Eastern North America, 100 years ago there were none east of the Mississippi. Now, wolf populations have coyote DNA, which makes them less wary of humans, albeit smaller. National park wolf population near Ottawa is now about 75% hybrid. At the same time, coyotes are now much larger, and therefore much more dangerous.
Coyotes have a lot in common with the urban foxes of the UK, with the difference that a coyote is much larger and much more aggressive. But they will happily live in your garden.
And you didn’t even get to the shite. So fucking sick of cleaning it off my kids shoes and bike wheels. Only rows I’ve had with strangers is because I challenged them about not picking up their dog’s shit
We have open land at the back.of our house…mester wilkored08 cleaned away the ‘rubbish’ at the back of our gates and he found 50 bags of dog shite thrown in the hedgerow…so he threw them onto the open grass…we then wrote on the pavement please takeaway your dog shite…and the council said we shouldn’t have done it…council officer asked if we could put it in our bin…I asked if he was joking…then they want an extra £70 added to my council tax bill…
I have encountered these ‘friendly’ dogs. A dog is running straight at you snarling, and yapping, just as it sinks it’s teeth into your ankle someone pipes up ‘he’s friendly’ then becomes irrate bad tempered and agressive as I stamp on the fucking bugger, with my free foot and leg, who is still attached to my ankle.
I put my wheelie bin containing the garden waste out early one morning for the refuse collection later on… got to tea-time and the bin was still standing in the same spot but everyone else in the road seemed to have taken theirs back in… next morning it was the only bin left standing awaiting what I presumed to be a late collection and it had stretched into the following day… unbeknown to me until later that afternoon, everyone’s wheelie had been emptied on the first day, yet mine was left untouched… Rang the council to explain they had somehow missed mine… After looking at their paperwork, they told me mine was not emptied because it had a ‘doggy-bag’ in it and the terms state quite clearly this should not be put in with the biomass stuff… tried to explain that it must have been a passing dog walker that had used my bin for convenience… They were not interested whatsoever… ended up walking to the park to lash it into the dog waste they have there…
Apparently… on collection days now, some of the bin wagons have a forward scout that looks into and has a root in the bins… something in there that should not be in there, or for instance, recycled stuff in general waste and this scout marks the bin for non-collection…!
It is a f***in joke nowaday’s
But then u get my “I’ll do what I want” wonderful neighbours…on a leaflet given to us by the refuse people it says NO VEGETABLE PEELINGS, only garden waste…and for the last 6 months that’s all they’ve put in the green bin, every Sunday the veg peelings are thrown in the green bin…so gawd knows what the contents have become…our bins do get checked…so I hope a bin inspector checks this one out…but I do agree with u…your bin is a prime target for the dog poo dumpers brigade…they should be made to pick it up themselves…with their hands…sneaky f*****ers…
