Responsible Pet Ownership

My plea to anyone considering getting a dog: Please do NOT get a dog unless you have the time and financial resources to provide the dog with proper training. If you are not willing or cannot afford to enroll your dog in training classes to learn basics like how to walk on a leash and obey verbal commands like "sit" and "come," you are not doing the dog any favors and could end up endangering it and others. My experiences this past week are proof of that. Within just a few days, I have had two encounters in which people who were walking their dogs in my neighborhood were clearly not prepared to do so.

During the first instance, what appeared to be a mother and her daughter were trying to walk three dogs. From a distance, I could tell that the pair were not in control of their dogs because they were essentially being dragged behind the leashes. To be on the safe side, I hung back a bit before starting to run with Max, and we took off in the direction opposite which the group was heading. Even so, I was startled when one of the dogs, which resembled Max when he was a puppy, escaped its collar and took off after us. The young girl yelled some kind of alert/warning as she pursued him. Meanwhile, her mom was screaming at her for having even taken the dog along on the walk. With cars zooming by, my heart skipped a beat. I hoped the puppy would not dart out into the street, and I also hoped he was friendly. As it turned out, he just wanted to visit with Max, which was a relief. "He's just too friendly for his own good," the girl blurted, almost out of breath. "There's no such thing," I responded. "He just needs some leash training; you should give puppy classes a try."

Today's experience, however, was worse. I was running along one of my regular trails with Max, and I noticed that someone else in the distance had their dog off-leash. On this particular trail, I usually run with Max off-leash also because there are no roads or cars to worry about, and I have him under pretty strong voice control. Yet, when I saw this person and dog, my instinct told me to put Max's leash back on, so I did. As we got closer, I saw the person trying to put a leash on his dog, but the dog wriggled away and ran over to Max. At first, the two dogs calmly sniffed each other and seemed to be fine. "I guess he just wanted to say 'hi,'" I said. But as soon as the dog's owner approached us, it started growling aggressively and lunged for Max's neck. The next few seconds were a blur of growling and yelping. At some point, I heard my own voice yelling at the owner to help, to get control of his dog. I realized pretty quickly that Max is such a friendly dog that his only chance of survival was to get away. Ultimately, I let go of the leash and placed myself between the dog and Max, and luckily Max ran (and the dog did not attack me). Understandably shaken, Max waited for me a short distance away. For some reason, my right hand was covered in blood. I checked Max carefully, and fortunately I could not find any broken skin. (The blood was mine -- a previous flesh wound that had somehow been ripped back open during the altercation.)

The point is that people need to be in control of their dogs if they are going to take them out in public. (And dogs need to be taken out in public because they need exercise!) Simply having a dog attached to a leash does not mean that a person is control of the dog; the dog needs to be responsive to voice commands as well. If you're not willing to put in the time, energy, and financial resources to achieve that, then please do the world a favor and just do not get a dog. Perhaps a fish or a rock garden would be more suitable for you.