Post by nobite on Sept 18, 2011 17:04:24 GMT -5
[Rant]We lease a site at a horse camp. The riding is wonderful, as are the many other folks that lease sites there. In fact, it turns out that the community aspect is as appealing as the riding... except for one issue: UNLEASHED DOGS! The camp rules, posted and written in the literature that all campers receive, explicitly requires all dogs to be on leash at all times. This is a reasonable request for a horse camp, primarily because not all horses have been desensitized to dogs and the chances of a spook and accident are greater with dogs running loose. Of course, from a responsible dog-owner's point of view, this requirement is a relief as you'd like to enjoy taking your dogs on walks without the stress of unwanted dog interaction. The reality is that many of the folks with leased sites simply ignore the leash requirement. Apparently, THEIR dogs are friendly and no one should be alarmed if THEIR dogs run up to them. Unfortunately, Jingles does not interpret greetings from loose dogs as you or I would! In fact, she doesn't interpret greetings from any dogs too well. I am working on that; but, training is much easier in a controlled environment. Jingles' first inclination is to get extremely excited, defensive and take a hunk out of the approaching dog. Last weekend we had the worst encounter in recent memory. It all seemed to be going well as we left our trailer. Down the road we went, on-leash, of course. Suddenly, THREE dogs came running at us from a campsite off to our right. The first dog was an intact male boxer. The other two were mixed breeds and I could not tell right away if they were intact. The three surrounded Taz, who froze in an alert position and let the dogs sniff him. The owner came running to get his dogs, apologizing all the while. I told him that my dog would be fine as long as his dogs did not make an aggressive move, but that if any of his dogs approached my other dog, it would not go as well. Loretta was off to my right side about 20 feet away. She actually had to jump on top of Jingles to suppress her desire to attack the dogs surrounding Taz. It was all Loretta could do to maintain control. The intact male boxer did venture over there and Jingles snapped at him. He backed off right away and his owner finally got control of him. My blood was boiling! The man continued to apologize. I didn't say a word to him because anything I said would have been inflammatory, I'm sure.[/Rant]
So, what to do? If I make a big deal of this to the management, I risk creating the type of stir that could lead to us having to leave the camp. Loretta LOVES this camp. So do I, actually. I just want a safe environment to walk my dogs. Oh, we have created a pen outside our trailer where we can sit with the dogs off-leash. Folks joke that we are sitting in a dog pen, but, heck, it makes it easy to relax and makes sure we don't bother anyone else. You know, when you have big, mean Dobermans, you think of these things! Here's the pen:
NOTE: this picture was taken when we had our living-quarters horse trailer parked on site. We now have a fifth-wheel camper there, but the pen surrounds the entrance and sitting area just the same.
I feel better getting this off my chest! We have had several encounters with loose dogs. Most of the dogs retreat when told to do so. Sometimes owners come running, sometimes they are nowhere to be seen. I'm sure folks talk about us as the people with the mean dogs. Jingles is impressive when she gets excited. As I mentioned, I am trying to work on that. But, we never take them out off-leash. We do walk them a lot. The dogs love it and we like the exercise, too.
So, what to do? If I make a big deal of this to the management, I risk creating the type of stir that could lead to us having to leave the camp. Loretta LOVES this camp. So do I, actually. I just want a safe environment to walk my dogs. Oh, we have created a pen outside our trailer where we can sit with the dogs off-leash. Folks joke that we are sitting in a dog pen, but, heck, it makes it easy to relax and makes sure we don't bother anyone else. You know, when you have big, mean Dobermans, you think of these things! Here's the pen:
NOTE: this picture was taken when we had our living-quarters horse trailer parked on site. We now have a fifth-wheel camper there, but the pen surrounds the entrance and sitting area just the same.
I feel better getting this off my chest! We have had several encounters with loose dogs. Most of the dogs retreat when told to do so. Sometimes owners come running, sometimes they are nowhere to be seen. I'm sure folks talk about us as the people with the mean dogs. Jingles is impressive when she gets excited. As I mentioned, I am trying to work on that. But, we never take them out off-leash. We do walk them a lot. The dogs love it and we like the exercise, too.
