Wild Dogs.

It’s an act of pure selfishness to let your dog off leash on trails where leashes are required. No other way around it. State parks, national forests, etc. have leash laws for a reason-from not wanting animals chased or harassed by pets to preventing startling horses that could cause great injury to rider and the horse to preventing the leashed dog from needing to be rescued due to injury from terrain or encounters with mtn lions, etc.

Your dog isn’t special, you are not special. You can not predict when your dog will attack a hiker, horse or child on a trail-no matter how many times you tell yourself ‘my dog wouldn’t do that’.

The breed doesn’t matter and the fact that the owner might accept financial responsibility doesn’t mean someone wants to get bit or be harassed.- The breed definitely matters. The point surrounding financial responsibility is that an owner is unlikely to put themselves in the situation knowing the consequences.

You can not predict when your dog will attack a hiker, horse or child on a trail-no matter how many times you tell yourself ‘my dog wouldn’t do that’. – You also can not predict when a person might attack a hiker, horse, or child. So…

The extremes…On the one hand we seem to have the staunch “no leash” type, as if it’s some sort of oppression to simply be courteous and leash an animal around strangers.  On the other we have the hypersensitive that will go berserk at the slightest perceived infringement, often escalating an otherwise harmless situation.  Fortunately not everyone has something to prove.

(This is not a judgement on the New York incident.  I happen to think the whole stupid thing would’ve been avoided if she simply said “My bad!” and leashed her dog.)

Extreme?  well that’s a first : )

Come at me bro!!!!

“Come at me bro!!!!”

Enough said……

You know what’s going on here…

Again LOL!

BTW, there’s a strong parallel in the refusal to wear masks in public when in close proximity to others…in stores etc where required by the business.

Somehow these sensible rules are seen as “infringement on personal freedoms”.

There’s a video floating around of a Costco employee dealing very effectively with a non-compliant customer….

But like I suggested earlier in this thread…..time for a new thread….”wild, rabid humans”….

Pedestrian –  ”come at me bro!!!” was a joke, which was not meant to be taken seriously. Sorry if anything I said offended you, as this was not my intent. Sometimes words get misconstrued on here, especially when I’m the one communicating them.  Best regards ; )

I was out hiking last summer with a friend and her dog (mixed breed, Labrador something). Few people were around (no one actually) so she let him off leash. He went and killed a marmot. She felt awful! Dogs especially kill endangered shorebirds (which nest on tundra mountaintops in Alaska), by stepping on their eggs, eating the eggs, or actually catching the parent (rare but can happen). They go after porcupines; the porky wins in most cases. They bring back moose and bears who get annoyed and chase them. Little dogs can get eaten by eagles and hawks, while their owners watch. Dogs kill ground squirrels, pikas, and any other rodent or lagomorph they can find. I should point out that we only found out about the marmot because the dog brought it back. What else did he do when he was out of our sight?

Dogs are created by us, bred by us and should be under our control at all times. Period. No need for sentiment here; many of us are dog owners. Proof below, Loki. No he’s not on leash because he is under voice control and about to be harnessed. Just as we wouldn’t allow people to go kill all these wildlife species, neither should we allow our dogs to; they are an extension of ourselves. Leave no trace.

Loki is a cutey.