Oh Crap..

[Tubbles]

Wow! It never occurred to me to be annoyed if a friendly dog came up to mine. And it has happened numerous times on and off leash. Sometimes I have even deliberately created these scenarios just to teach my dogs how I want them to respond.

I also find the idea that anyone would kick a friendly dog abhorrent.

I have put a lot of time and effort into socialising my dogs with others and I expect them to take other dogs and anything else coming up to them (including cats, birds, kids) in their stride. They are allowed to show interest (afterall they are still pups themselves) but that is it.

My hope is that by exposing them to, and dealing with situations, that they will in the longer term respond calmly and obediently and let me deal with a situation if there is a problem.

This paid off for me the other day when a young toddler...... offleash..... and without any responsible owner within metres came charging up to my dogs screeching "doggies" , arms and limbs akimbo. My 8 month old Rottweiler was put into and sit and wait offleash (we were in an offleash park at the time). However my 6 month cavalier cross disgraced himself somewhat pulling excitedly at his leash (still in training) to greet the child.

Poor dad was horrified and was racing behind with no hope of intercepting his son. But his expression was priceless and still affords me a few laughs. By the time he arrived his son was calmly patting the "vicious rottweiler" and appeared to have survived his encounter! ;) Hopefully he learnt to keep his son a bit closer........it could have been the road he ran too. But hopefully he also learnt not to judge the breed. Needless to say I did not ....kick .....the offender or yell at the owner.

Btw the puppy primary course we did also taught us how to try to prevent dogs crossing roads without permission. We did the usual sit and wait, then cross but we also practised walking our dogs along the kerb and not allowing them to put a paw onto the road even if we gave them a tug on the leash. If the dog tries to go onto the road it is simply pushed backwards and the command off spoken in a deep loud voice. I try to practise this everyday during our walk.

When my cavalier cross got out one day, because my son forgot to close the gate, he raced along the footpath for a short period down the street, making no attempt to cross the road, then turned around and raced back home. This could be useful to practise with your dog just in case it ever manages to gets out again.

My dog trainer friend has taught me that it is far better to create possible scenarios and teach your dogs the appropriate response than to wait and possibly face a disaster.

[Chezy]

I'd wait and see what happens, they won't put ur dog down for 1 incident that had not injuries

I'd also slap the sis and invest in one of those thingies that shuts the door

Edited January 2, 2011 by Chezy & Chopper

[dancinbcs]

If there does end up being a fine and your sister is old enough to pay it (even from pocket money), then she should be the one responsible. There is never any excuse good enough for leaving a door or gate open and allowing a dog to escape. In this case it was a small friendly dog but she still put it at risk of being run over or attacked if the dogs it ran up to happened to respond badly. I have heard of many similar cases but they all involved bigger dogs rushing out and seriously attacking smaller ones being walked past on lead or the dog rushes out and is killed on the road. It is irresponsible behaviour of the worst kind and should not happen. There is far more chance of a dog attacking a another passing the house it lives in and guards, than there is of it attacking another dog in the park. No dog should be put in this position.

I no longer walk my dogs in the street at all due to dogs rushing out of driveways to attack. I have never had a friendly dog rush at mine, only aggressive ones. They have always been in full attack mode before they reached me and are rarely little dogs. I don't worry about little dogs because mine are larger and my dogs don't fight but anything closer to the size of mine or larger would certainly be kicked if they got close enough. To prevent this I carry a stock whip in the park and crack it if any dog even looks like approaching. If they keep coming they get hit with the whip. I will not have any more dogs attacked by strange off lead dogs ever again if I can possibly prevent it.

Oh, and teaching dogs to not cross roads without permission is useful if they do happen to get out (even though they shouldn't) or slip their lead and go wandering up the street BUT the training will be forgotten once they decide to chase something. They wont even notice the road is there if they are in chase mode. If you have a breed that doesn't really chase it is a great idea but with a herding breed like mine it does have limitations.

[Skitch]

Letter box and watermeter usually mark the edge of the property.

I used to live in Campbelltown, Adelaide, SA too (on the Torrens side) and I didn't have a front fence either.

If I remember right, the letterbox and water meter were practically on top of each other. And set back a bit (5m or so) from the edge of the road. It's usually fairly obvious where the boundary lines are if you look up and down the street to see where the gardens leave a path for the postie and get a little bit less enthusiastic - ie council owns everything even if you plant it on their side.

How far from the kerb to the property boundary can vary from street to street.

So if the dog never went past the letter box, you're pretty safe.

PS the rules are here

http://www.dogsncats.asn.au/webdata/resour...agement_Act.pdf

page 7 section 7 - dog is at large if it is unrestrained by a responsible person and is on public property or private property without the owner's permisson.

Ie if it is on private property with the owner's permission it does not have to be restrained with a lead.

page 24 has a bit about attacking and harassing but there is an exception if the dog is "defending" its own property from intruders. Ie so long as your dog stayed on your private property - all good. Unless it had previously been declared dangerous or menacing and then there are "enclosure" rules ie dog must be kept somewhere escape proof.

Ahh thankyou! I was trying to find the legislation about this type of scenario but couldn't seem to access it from the council website. Very useful and reassuring - thankyou!

If she is definitly dog friendly you could talk to your neighbours and get references in case there is contact from the council,chances are the couple will cool down by the time they get home.

This can happen to anyone and if they were observant they should have seen your dog was friendly,I get a fair few small dogs charging out of gates but they are usually all fluff and bluff.I can tell straight away by my dogs attitude if they are friendly or not after all they understand the lingo.My main concern in these cases is the other dog running in front of a car,which happened to our neighbours german short hair pointer,....dog on other side of road,unlocked screen door,bus..., any way hope everything is ok and nothing comes of it,no news is good news

True.. but what if their dogs weren't friendly? People have a right to walk even the most aggressive dogs on the street as long as they are restrained. It's not fair that our naughty little mutt darted out of the door and potentially upset their dogs . And yes I'm just so glad that I actually saw her go out the door! She doesn't really have much road sense I dont think.. could have easily been hit by a car .

If your dog had rushed mine regardless if yours was a nice dog or not I would have been pissed as I have a dog that's not so nice and the simple act of your dog rushing would have started mine off.

They were prob pissed because they've had plenty of experiences of dogs like yours rushing them and they'd had enough....I can understand that.

You can either contact the Ranger and get your side of the story in now or wait for them to contact you.

As mentioned previously, I agree that they had a right to be upset.. my own dog is on lead aggressive so I do understand their frustrations! I wouldn't have reacted in quite the way that they did given that nothing really happened.. but the issue is that something COULD HAVE happened. They didn't know our dog, didn't know she was friendly.. and for all I know their dogs could have been very aggressive! They have a right to walk their dogs restrained on the street, ours should not have been able to get out and hassle them.

I think I'll wait and see if the ranger even does contact us.. I'm kind of hoping that the people were just threatening me to give me a fright and wont actually bother with the council but we shall see.

I'd wait for the council to contact you, but certainly document everything in case they do.

And give younger sister a slappin' for being so stooopid - but really, ask her what she thinks would have happened if these people had been walking on the other side of the road and a car had been coming - or enquire if she intends to leave the front door open when your baby is walking age

Grr yes! She had actually gone across the road to her friends place and my Mum marched accross their and dragged her home. She was hardly even apologetic about it! Typical teenager :/.

Wow! It never occurred to me to be annoyed if a friendly dog came up to mine. And it has happened numerous times on and off leash. Sometimes I have even deliberately created these scenarios just to teach my dogs how I want them to respond.

I also find the idea that anyone would kick a friendly dog abhorrent.

I have put a lot of time and effort into socialising my dogs with others and I expect them to take other dogs and anything else coming up to them (including cats, birds, kids) in their stride. They are allowed to show interest (afterall they are still pups themselves) but that is it.

My hope is that by exposing them to, and dealing with situations, that they will in the longer term respond calmly and obediently and let me deal with a situation if there is a problem.

This paid off for me the other day when a young toddler...... offleash..... and without any responsible owner within metres came charging up to my dogs screeching "doggies" , arms and limbs akimbo. My 8 month old Rottweiler was put into and sit and wait offleash (we were in an offleash park at the time). However my 6 month cavalier cross disgraced himself somewhat pulling excitedly at his leash (still in training) to greet the child.

Poor dad was horrified and was racing behind with no hope of intercepting his son. But his expression was priceless and still affords me a few laughs. By the time he arrived his son was calmly patting the "vicious rottweiler" and appeared to have survived his encounter! :D Hopefully he learnt to keep his son a bit closer........it could have been the road he ran too. But hopefully he also learnt not to judge the breed. Needless to say I did not ....kick .....the offender or yell at the owner. ;)

Btw the puppy primary course we did also taught us how to try to prevent dogs crossing roads without permission. We did the usual sit and wait, then cross but we also practised walking our dogs along the kerb and not allowing them to put a paw onto the road even if we gave them a tug on the leash. If the dog tries to go onto the road it is simply pushed backwards and the command off spoken in a deep loud voice. I try to practise this everyday during our walk.

When my cavalier cross got out one day, because my son forgot to close the gate, he raced along the footpath for a short period down the street, making no attempt to cross the road, then turned around and raced back home. This could be useful to practise with your dog just in case it ever manages to gets out again.

My dog trainer friend has taught me that it is far better to create possible scenarios and teach your dogs the appropriate response than to wait and possibly face a disaster.

It probably never occurred to you to be annoyed because your dogs are okay with other dogs. My own dog (not the dog in this post) is onlead aggressive and I always panic and freak out whenever dogs rush us regardless of whether they're friendly or not and I've certainly gently kicked/pushed dogs away with my foot to distance them from my onlead dog for their own good! Luckily my girl is quite well trained and her onlead aggression has got much better with training but she still wont tolerate dogs getting up in her face when she's onlead and we've had some really scary experiences while out walking. I dont think these people reacted unreasonably really.. I feel they did kick her a bit hard and the amount of yelling and accusing our dog of 'attacking' theirs when all she did was run up with her tail wagging and not make any contact was a bit excessive.. but I do understand why they were annoyed! It just shouldn't have happened .

Your training sounds excellent! I dont actually spend enough time with my parents dog to train her (I dont live here usually!). I doubt my parents would be willing to dedicate the time and effort to teach her such things either.. . She's generally a good dog who comes when she's called, knows simple commands (sit, drop, etc), is well socialized and friendly and that's good enough for them I guess . It's a bit unfortunate really.. my own dogs are trained to have a bit of roadsense (not enough that I wouldn't be panicking like mad if they got out, though!) and neither of them would walk out the front door even if there were other dogs out the front (as it happened last night my italian greyhound was standing by the door when my parents dog got out and didn't even follow her! Good boy ).

I'd wait and see what happens, they won't put ur dog down for 1 incident that had not injuries

I'd also slap the sis and invest in one of those thingies that huts the door :D

Oh I know they wont put her to sleep.. that would just be ridiculous! I assume they'd have to come out and asses the dog.. and as soon as they met my parents bouncy happy tail wagging bundle of fluff I think they'd put two and two together and realize she's not out to hurt anyone and this was just an accident. And yep.. my sister deserves many slaps!

If there does end up being a fine and your sister is old enough to pay it (even from pocket money), then she should be the one responsible. There is never any excuse good enough for leaving a door or gate open and allowing a dog to escape. In this case it was a small friendly dog but she still put it at risk of being run over or attacked if the dogs it ran up to happened to respond badly. I have heard of many similar cases but they all involved bigger dogs rushing out and seriously attacking smaller ones being walked past on lead or the dog rushes out and is killed on the road. It is irresponsible behaviour of the worst kind and should not happen. There is far more chance of a dog attacking a another passing the house it lives in and guards, than there is of it attacking another dog in the park. No dog should be put in this position.

I no longer walk my dogs in the street at all due to dogs rushing out of driveways to attack. I have never had a friendly dog rush at mine, only aggressive ones. They have always been in full attack mode before they reached me and are rarely little dogs. I don't worry about little dogs because mine are larger and my dogs don't fight but anything closer to the size of mine or larger would certainly be kicked if they got close enough. To prevent this I carry a stock whip in the park and crack it if any dog even looks like approaching. If they keep coming they get hit with the whip. I will not have any more dogs attacked by strange off lead dogs ever again if I can possibly prevent it.

Oh, and teaching dogs to not cross roads without permission is useful if they do happen to get out (even though they shouldn't) or slip their lead and go wandering up the street BUT the training will be forgotten once they decide to chase something. They wont even notice the road is there if they are in chase mode. If you have a breed that doesn't really chase it is a great idea but with a herding breed like mine it does have limitations.

Yep, I agree fully as do my parents. It could have been so much worse than what happened.. I've almost made myself sick thinking about what could have happened if my big ACD X bully breed dog got out because she was here last night too! She's friendly to other dogs offlead but I think she would have given these people a heart attack if she had of rushed up the driveway towards them. She generally wont walk out of the front door if it's accidentally left open.. but I'd never rely 100% on that training and I'm so glad she was outside eating her dinner when the door was left open! My sister is 18 and has a job.. any resulting fines will definitely be paid by her. It was an accident but I think what's infuriated my parents the most is that she hardly even apologized for what happened and didn't seem to grasp that it could have been much worse!

That's awful that you've had so many bad experiences! Have you rang the council about repeat offending dogs? I would have! We've only had it happen a handful of times in my parents neighbourhood.. a few of those times the dog was obviously quite aggressive and wanting to 'go' our dogs but usually they were friendly just wanting to play! Either situation is no good for us as my dog (who used to live at my parents place until I moved out) is onlead aggressive .

I really dont think we'd have any luck teaching my parents dog not to cross a road. She might grasp the concept kind of.. until there was another dog on the other side of the road :/!

[Greytmate]

Oh I know they wont put her to sleep.. that would just be ridiculous! I assume they'd have to come out and asses the dog.. and as soon as they met my parents bouncy happy tail wagging bundle of fluff I think they'd put two and two together and realize she's not out to hurt anyone and this was just an accident.

Don't assume that.

All they will investigate is the actual incident, and assess what harm (if any) was done.

It would be quite normal for DA dog to act just like a bouncy happy tail wagging bundle of fluff when the rangers do get to see the dog, and the behaviour should have no bearing on the investigation at all.

[Skitch]

Oh I know they wont put her to sleep.. that would just be ridiculous! I assume they'd have to come out and asses the dog.. and as soon as they met my parents bouncy happy tail wagging bundle of fluff I think they'd put two and two together and realize she's not out to hurt anyone and this was just an accident.

Don't assume that.

All they will investigate is the actual incident, and assess what harm (if any) was done.

It would be quite normal for DA dog to act just like a bouncy happy tail wagging bundle of fluff when the rangers do get to see the dog, and the behaviour should have no bearing on the investigation at all.

Yes, but.. surely they cant decide a dog is dog aggressive based just on heresay? Technically what happened cant even be proved, no one else saw it! That doesn't mean I'm going to deny it did happen though. I assume there's some testing involved before they just declare a dog as dog aggressive because someone accused it of attacking their dogs..?

[Greytmate]

Oh I know they wont put her to sleep.. that would just be ridiculous! I assume they'd have to come out and asses the dog.. and as soon as they met my parents bouncy happy tail wagging bundle of fluff I think they'd put two and two together and realize she's not out to hurt anyone and this was just an accident.

Don't assume that.

All they will investigate is the actual incident, and assess what harm (if any) was done.

It would be quite normal for DA dog to act just like a bouncy happy tail wagging bundle of fluff when the rangers do get to see the dog, and the behaviour should have no bearing on the investigation at all.

Yes, but.. surely they cant decide a dog is dog aggressive based just on heresay? Technically what happened cant even be proved, no one else saw it! That doesn't mean I'm going to deny it did happen though. I assume there's some testing involved before they just declare a dog as dog aggressive because someone accused it of attacking their dogs..?

No don't assume there is behaviour or temperament testing involved, there isn't.

Most dogs are friendly most of the time, even ones that are really aggressive sometimes.

If there is an investigation, any outcome will be based on what the officers decide. It isn't a court case. There is no swearing on the bible, formal evidence required, or calling for expert witnesses. If they fine you for having a 'dog at large' or anything else it will be based on hearsay - what they have been told by the people making the report. Also on what you tell them about the dog's behaviour during the incident. They just make a decision based on that.

If then you choose to fight them in court at your own expense, you can.

Edited January 2, 2011 by Greytmate

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

Hi Skitch

Menacing is not the same as "attacking" ie menacing can be as simple as looking scary (barking and growling and lunging) behind a (relatively secure) front fence.

There has been a recent case in Adelaide that was in the letters to the mesenger / courier where a big dog described as a "rottweiler", used to menace everything that went past its picket fence and eventually smashed some pickets off and killed two SWF being walked past. Owner picked up one to protect it but Big dog still grabbed it from her and killed it.

That one was probably PTS but it was all too late for the SWF. The big dog should have been declared "menacing" and kept in a secure enclosure out the back. That's what the rules are for.

Councils vary on what action they take and how much of the rules they follow. They have to be convinced someone is going to sue them if something goes wrong and even then they don't always do anything (staff don't have to pay when their inaction costs the council money). It can be very frustrating.

I used to live with an ACD. We baby sat a labrador for a friend - it pulled several fence palings off next to the neighbour's driveway and left our place but the ACD stayed home. Neighbour came home, he likes to play tease the ACD while ACD has fun being scary, barking. So neighbour gets out of car, starts game up with ACD, and while walking to the door of his house along the driveway - has a huge fright when he realises the fence is broken and the ACD could "get" him if it wanted. It didn't. It had a very clear understanding of the game and where home was. It's something I like about ACD.