Etiquette with unleashed dogs

If you take a big enough dump, the dog will recognize your dominance and leave you alone.

You kids need to carry pepper spray.

Don't stop running there. Screw dog owners and their off leash dogs. They are terrible people who don't respect others.

Better yet - carry dog treats and have the dog follow you until the lady can't see you anymore and she loses her dog. Serves her right for not following proper laws of your town.

I support crackheads wrote:

You kids need to carry pepper spray.

Your coach is not very bright.

Call animal control, file a complaint. She is wrong, you are right. Hopefully you have the woman's name. Someone needs to call her bs out, be that person.

I've called animal control at least a dozen times. They are on your side. Build a history on the dog owner, that's how it stops.

If that park has leash laws (and I've never been in one that doesn't), she is one hundred percent in the wrong. I hate owners who have dogs off leash and cannot control them. if they have full control, that is totally cool.

I agree with the other poster and your co-captian. File that complaint and let animal control know as well. If you guys are able to run in the park again, and if one of you has a cell phone, just call it in right away when you see that loose dog again.

And I say all this as a dog owner who occasionally has the dog off leash. It is totally my responsibility. No one should alter what they are doing for my off leash dog.

The correct answer is you need your parents to get the Athletic Director fired so they can hire one that has a spine. That would solve your problem.

SophomoreChump wrote: She yelled at us to stop so she could catch the dog.

Stop and help her catch her dog. This is not so difficult to figure out.

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMM wrote:

Don't stop running there. Screw dog owners and their off leash dogs. They are terrible people who don't respect others.

Do not stop running there.

Next time get the dog to keep chasing you the rest of your run. This is easy to do. Every time it stops, tantalize it to keep chasing you more, and stay just out of reach.

the real problem..... wrote:

The correct answer is you need your parents to get the Athletic Director fired so they can hire one that has a spine. That would solve your problem.

Off least attack dogs are extremely dangerous. The AD is putting yours and other people's lives in danger by not standing up for you.

malmo wrote:

Stop and help her catch her dog. This is not so difficult to figure out.

Shoot the dog, and give it back to her. Problem solved.

AD is trying to go the way of least resistence here and the AD is wrong. The only law being broken here is by the woman with the dog. File the complaint (mainly because she went to the school...I would never file after one incident) and make sure to followup if it occurs again.

Thanks sincerely to everyone for the thoughts. The lady apparently went ballistic when she found out we filed a complaint. She was visited by the vector inspector today - that is also animal control in our town. She was apparently highly abusive and will now have to make an appearance before a magistrate for threatening a city employee. Not sure how this changes our situation with the AD, but it might help. Thanks again.

What kind of dogs involved? Would they be good pacers for next Chicago Marathon?

The Dogfather wrote:

What kind of dogs involved? Would they be good pacers for next Chicago Marathon?

German shepherd.

malmo wrote:

SophomoreChump wrote: She yelled at us to stop so she could catch the dog.

Stop and help her catch her dog. This is not so difficult to figure out.

From your answer Mr. Malmo, I can tell you think we are rude kids. We aren't. The trouble is that this happens fairly often. Not every person is as angry as this lady, but people often ask us to stop. We wouldn't get much running done if we stopped every time we were asked. Seems to me it's not too difficult to figure out how to use a leash, especially if your dog is not trained on recall.

The winter before my junior year of high school I was running on a gravel road a few miles from my house. Around five miles into my run I got surrounded by some large, aggressive and surprisingly fast dogs. Fortunately their redneck owner was nearby. As he said 'He don't bite' the largest dog took a sizable bite out of my running shorts. I told the incompetent owners that I was okay, but in retrospect I should've at least demanded that they fork over $40 for a new pair of shorts. I don't run on that road alone anymore.

The next year, just before the beginning of my senior outdoor season a teammate and I were on an easy run after school. We passed an older guy (early 80s). He was walking in the middle of the sidewalk so we parted around him. After we passed him he yelled something after us, which we had a good laugh about.

The next day at practice the head coach called a team meeting. He demanded that whoever had pushed an old man down step forward. I immediately explained what happened, but I was too late. The old guy had called the school and said that we had pushed him to the ground. Unfortunately, he had donated some trivial sum of money to the team, so the coaches took his side.

We were banned from leaving campus until we arranged an in-person meeting with the guy to apologize. My teammate wanted to go ahead an apologize, but I, being a prideful fellow, refused to apologize for something that I didn't do.

My distance coach, however, was more understanding. She let me do my runs before school and come to practice for a few minutes after school. (At this point I was running around 60 mpw, and everyone else was running around 30 mpw)

After a while, the rest of the team got sick of doing easy and long runs on the track, and the subject of arranging an apology was rekindled. I did a bit of research about the guy, and I found out that he was a close assistant and friend of my state's KKK-member senator in the 1940's. I told my teammate this, and he lost it. He had a very loud conversation with the head coach, who immediately capitulated and allowed us to run off-campus again.

In retrospect, I should've handled it better. I should've swallowed my pride and apologized, and it was unfair to cause a punishment to be exacted on my teammates for something that I was accused of.

The moral of this is that there is no correct way to deal with bad coaches believing libelous accusations.

SophomoreChump wrote:

Thanks sincerely to everyone for the thoughts. The lady apparently went ballistic when she found out we filed a complaint. She was visited by the vector inspector today - that is also animal control in our town. She was apparently highly abusive and will now have to make an appearance before a magistrate for threatening a city employee. Not sure how this changes our situation with the AD, but it might help. Thanks again.

I hope the AD is aware of these things.

Great dog for you to have, including as a running companion. Try to get it to follow you home, away from its jackass owner.