yesterday afternoon we took our huskys to the beach. Even though it was cooler here yesterday than it has been and we went later on to prevent the dogs getting too hot it was absolutely packed with it being the easter wkend.
Firstly we walked along the beach where they had plenty of space to burn off the crazy amount of energy they always have at the start of a walk then went for a stroll along the promenade and pier. The dogs were impeccably behaved, staying close to us on a loose lead and ignoring the people passing by with their kids, other dogs etc.
Huskys are quite unusual around here so we are used to people commenting on them, either to us directly or overhearing what they say. However there were a couple of comments that really annoyed me yesterday!
1. Whilst walking down some steps my girl caught her leg in her lead so I stopped to untangle her. As I did a woman tutted loudly at the fact I hadn't pulled my dog our of her path despite the fact there was loads of room to pass. What does she want me to do? Carry on so missy ends up breaking her legs?!
2.Another woman virtually pushed her partner and child over the pier shouting 'keep him away from those dogs' if it hadnt have been so busy I would have stopped and asked her why exactly.
3. A bloke commented on how he would like a husky to his wife. She took 1 look at them and said 'no way, there eyes freak me out. Theyd have my leg off'. must have missed the report linking blue eyed dogs to the removal of legs!

Feel even more sorry for the champdoggers who own apparently 'bad breeds' reported in the media. I dont know how u put up with the comments from the idiots with no knowledge that think they know it all.

Rant over :-)

Although it can be annoying to us dog owners it's a fact that not everybody likes dogs :-) I personally can't understand how anyone would want to keep rats or snakes as pets - I know there are people on here who keep rats and each to their own I say but for me I would never contemplate having one as a pet. I know they are very intelligent and can make lovely pets but they just aren't an animal I can find anything at all endearing about them - sorry rat owners :-) And as for keeping a snake as a pet :-O I'm not frightened of them and have indeed held one but again can't see any reason why one would want one as a pet :-)

When people make a detour around my dogs as they obviously don't like them or are scared of them it doesn't worry me at all - I know I would do the same if I came across someone walking their rat or their snake :-)

If an adult is scared of dogs it must be very hard to not convey that fear to their children. 

I get so shocked at some of the comments people get on here! I've never had anything like that with any of my dogs. It's been a couple of years since i've owned one, maybe 3 years, but I've honestly never encountered it. I feel very lucky because I guess it would be awful.

We frequently take our three Girls to the beach. They too have a free walk along the "dogs allowed" bit then we walk round to the cafe areas for a cuppa. I get the other side of the coin. With three teddy bears trotting along I get stray kids rushing up to cuddle them ( I have been known to drag my girls away from some obnoxious kids...LOL) and every Tom Dick and Harry wanting to chat...It too can get a little tiresome, we often take 1/2 hour to walk to the cafe a walk of 5 mins at most !!!
Even so I do get those who are not keen on dogs dragging children away or making rude comments. The most often being " Dogs shouldn't be allowed at the beach" Why? they love a stroll along the prom and are no trouble to anyone...unlike the amount of small yappy snappy JRT's and Yorkies who seem to have a death wish and often go for my placid girls....but are often laughed at ! Then you get those who feel you should make your dogs walk in the road to get out of the way...I don't make other people push children into the road...we just go single file, is that not enough. I have just as much right to walk on the pavement...and so do my girls..
I too would not like a small furry rat etc.. for a pet, my neigbours daughter has one and insists on trying to get me to hold it....why would I wish to cuddle a rodent ??? Not my kind of pet but I do not tell her to take it away, nor would I drag my children away from it...each to his own.
Aileen

People are idiots sometimes!

Today I took 3 of my dogs out (a gsd and 2 shelties) we overherd a couple of comments that really upset me, one of them was that my sheltie boy was a snappy little **** when all he did was bark because another dog barked first.

Then another, a group of girls walked past and called my dogs fat! My dogs are all perfect weight!!! Shocking how nasty people can be sometimes.

Absolutely agree Harley, but you wouldn't make loud, unpleasant comments about them if you saw people with them would you? ;-)

I get that some people don't like dogs or are scared of them, and I most certainly understand the slightly worried looks I get sometimes when I'm out walking (always with 3 or 4).

I'm lucky though in that I've not had nasty comments made - if I did I'm not sure I could trust myself not to take issue with it, although I would hope I'd do it with some decorum and in a pleasant way with a view to education.  Although again, not sure I could trust myself to do that lol!

one of them was that my sheltie boy was a snappy little **** when all he did was bark because another dog barked first.


I took 2 of my dogs out today and had a around 4 year old girl run up behind from out of no where and go to grab my dogs tail to get her attention, when i told the girl not to do that the mum who had now appeared said i really should teach her to not do that as some dogs are like yours snappy,i was rather annoyed as my dog in no way snapped or made a noise she litteraly turned round frightened yet if she had of snapped it would of been my dog got the blame even though the little girl grabbed her from the back :(

I know what you mean I have a SBT she is 13mths and the amount of people that put their dogs on leads and walk in opposite way (99.9%)
My sister has a rescue husky and she has one blue and a brown eye people scream at my sister that its cruel and freaky plus she has to stay on lead (long line) as doesn't recall good as t prey drive is to much for her to come back .  
But people think she can't be trusted but she is brilliant in every way but recall lol

Nessa

in pets at home with our 5 month old spitz puppy and she is standing on her back legs waving at everyone, and then a boy of about 7 walks into the same aisle as us and starts screaming at her, his mother rushes to him and said to him it is allright it is not going to bite you, get it away from me he is screeching, we are know where near him and he is still screaming and i just turned to my OH and said terrible when a puppy is better mannered than a child, because by this time she was just sitting beside me watching the screaming horror,two other people came around the corner to see what all the fuss was and could not believe the chaos the child was causing because of a very small puppy they all walked past the boy and made a fuss of the puppy who once again did her waving at everyone act.
i am not bothered about the fact that he was screaming or his mother reassured him that i would not bite him but surley she should of said to him stop now there is no need for this but no she pampered and reasured him it was ok to scream at a dog , would of hated to see his reaction if it had been our akita

The blue eyes comment reminds me of something said to me.
I have blue merle bitch with piercing blue eyes.I chap told me that I had been diddled when I bought her as she was obviously a crossbred because surely I knew that only huskys have eyes that colour !!

I wouldn't mind if someone detoured around my dogs, but I'd be pretty cross if they made rude comments. I think husky blue eyes are stunning! But yes, it's very hard not to pass the fear on - my sister-in-law is terrified of dogs and in spite of her best efforts not to show it, her children are turning the same way alas. Hopefully when they are a little older they can spend more time with our dogs and get a bit more used to them.

Harley - fear I understand. Rude inappropriate comments from people I do not :-)
Merlot - we get exactly the same. Its a good job our dogs are well behaved as if they did react to a small yapper the big dogs would prob get the blame as they could do more damage. When theyre small people think its cute and they get away with it. That annoys me as much as rude people!
Boody - kids are always coming and grabbing my dogs, think theyve seen films like snow dogs so theyre interested in them. Thankfully missy and zak love a fuss but its only a matter of time before they get bitten by running up a grabbing a poor unsuspecting less friendly dog.
Judgedreed - sounds like that child caused a right performance! Missy also likes to wave, usually whilst kangaroo hopping on the end of her lead! :-)

> Feel even more sorry for the champdoggers who own apparently 'bad breeds' reported in the media.

It doesn't happen just to people with big bad dogs!

About 10 years ago, I had a bitch that needed an eye removed.  She had been attacked by another dog.  She came home with a dressing hanging out of the eye socket, which I had to pull out a fraction each day, and cut off the excess.  There was always a small section of the dressing showing, and it was usually blood stained.

Dogs can become fearful after losing an eye, and I didn't want this bitch to become nervous.  Yes, all I wanted was to cuddle her and keep her safe, but I had to be sensible and get her out and about.  I started taking her to open markets and car boot sales, thinking that walking her around places with loads of people would be the right medicine.

While I agree it didn't look nice or pretty, it was nothing that should have scared anyone half to death.  One day I saw a woman with a young lad, and she had obviously seen me at another market earlier in the week.  She said to the child - quick come away, it's that devil dog again.

The dog concerned?  A Toy Poodle.

its very sad but it happens,we get it with our newf,people either cross the road to avoid us,little dogs want to bite him(is that because he is huge and completly black)or you get the idiots who run up high pitched excitment and shove their kids in his face,now that annoys me as stan is very big and very strong and high pitched over excitment causes him to go slightly loopy and stand up on his back legs,an impressive site as he is as tall as me in this position and im five foot eight,some people wil then quicky dissapear,others will wind him up more,all the time im trying to get him into a down position as it blinkin hurts if he accidently gives you his paw right in your chops,but these people are obivious to my struggling and in the end you have to tell them,for their safety.
my neighbour has a newf,they used to take it off lead to our beach,well they did until a little girl ran screaming into the sea on the middle of winter that the dog was going to eat her,my neighbours dog was not doing anything,walking to heel,the girls father then went mental at my neighbour,who was trying to put a lead on his newf as he wanted to go in and recue the child,
we all have conceptions of types and breed of dog,sadly thats life,wether its from personal experiance or word of mouth i dont know,i do know that since having stan i am more wary of little dogs,i also am nervous when walking and the local teens (age 14 ish)are out with their staffs and rotties,its not the dogs im scared of,its the fact i dont think they will be able to handle their dogs if something kicked off
jo

Oh your poor girl Jean, hope she recovered ok. People can be idiots can't they! I was just thinking yesterday, some acquaintances of mine have a 7 month puppy who became paralysed a couple of weeks after they bought her and only regained the ability to walk at all a short while ago, they take her out as much as possible, carrying her mostly but allowing her to walk a little and get socialised, as it's a breed that can be quite reactive if not socialised. She's very friendly considering her lack of socialisation. But she has crooked legs and a very strange gait as her hips are nearly immovable apparently. She's not in pain and she is definitely improving steadily, but I must admit when I saw them yesterday at a large dog event I thought they were very brave to take her out with all the idiots that might be thinking or commenting about how odd she looks, bless her!

Unfortunately such rudeness and judgemental comments are not confined to comments about ones dogs.

I was born with congenital cataracts, very solid ones that looked like a White mushroom in my pupil.

This resulted in me having only about 10% sight by the time I was in school.  About 15 years ago I had cataract surgery and had lens implants, giving me around 20% sight in the best eye, and still 10% in the other)

Disregarding nasty unkind comments from children and teasing (just learnt to give a good retort or ignore) my biggest bugbear is the number of people questioning where my glasses are, assuming that all eye problems can be corrected and helped by optical aids.  When told that glasses can't help my condition they carry on disbelieving insisting I don't wear glasses due to vanity.

Now as an adult in my later 40's I still get complete strangers who feel they are entitled to pass comment in this manner, not in any attempt to be helpful, if they see me reading (I have to have printed matter practically under my nose).

Now I wouldn't walk up to a person using a stick and suggest they would be better off with crutches or a wheelchair, so why do people think they can pass comment, joke about my not using glasses????

HI, same breed as me and I too am whole heartedly sick and tired of the comments I get. I feel for you I really do, if I ever try to stop and get an explanation from the person making the comment they usually just shout more abuse and walk off.

I've gotten so sick of the comments that I put mines in the car and take them to places where very few people walk only others who are in a similar situation (Dobermans, Great Danes etc).
I usually run mine in harness but they haven't cast their winter coat yet and are feeling the warm weather so I have to wait until its the cooler part of the day. My dogs are not out of control and like yours they ignore people/prams/children passing, I really don't understand the mentality of some people.

We took our boys on the field last night and they were having a cool down in the pond, a girl asked me if he bites i said no and then she said are you sure? And my frenchie is an overweight cat or am i sure he isnt a crossbreed.

> a girl asked me if he bites i said no and then she said are you sure?

You obviously have more patience than me.

I would have said that he only eats one girl a day, and he'd only had one a few hours ago, so she would be ok.

 

my daughter always says,when asked"do they bite?"- "no,but i do!"

Not had it yet with my Bernese, well not bad reactions.. Just waiting to see what happens when I get my next dog of a different breed, going to be interesting...

We have only had our DDB boy for 7 months and it has really opened our eyes into how nasty some people can be about anothers person's breed. So far our boy has been called ugly and several people have ran and jumped dramitically out of our way so if he is going to bite anything or anyone moving. It was worse when we walked with a relatives SBT, In my area and in others, im sure so many people are so easily influenced by the media :(

It's just plain rude. 

I have to admit that I too find Blue yes and very light eyes on a dog creepy and unattractive, I also find the molloser/bull breeds ugly, but wouldn't dream of saying that to an owner.

I personally love my dogs curly tails, think it helps with hygiene in that area, but have had people cringe and say they hate to see  a dogs anus on show??? 

Personal taste is one thing rudeness and total paranoia, lack of tolerance is another.

> So far our boy has been called ugly and several people have ran and jumped dramitically out of our way so if he is going to bite anything or anyone moving

I know the feeling :( At least our dogs don't understand the insults people give them though :)

What annoys me is how people that have dogs (who should be able to recognise a dogs friendly behaviour) can't seem to recognise friednly behaviour in other dogs.

I passed a couple with thier dog loose, they looked worried so I shouted out that my dog is friendly, but he may jump around in play if thier dog comes over after they have had a sniff (best to warn them, as Buster doing a play-bow makes some people think he's trying to attack :( ). Despite Busters calm behaviour and gentle tail-wag they thought it best to change thier route to avoid us after the usual string of "hope you've fed him, are you allowed to walk horses here? ahh so your the reason we don't have many postmen" etc.... (fair enough, I'm used to this!).

We met them a futher on, the shock of seeing such a big dog had obviously warn off and they believed me this time when I shouted out "he IS friendly", so the man & 2 kids (the woman wasn't brave enough), marched quickly over to us, I shouted out "if you want to stroke him, wait a moment, I'll get him to sit or he'll get excited", they carried on all with out-stretched hands looming towards Busters head, (no time to get Buster to sit) Buster got excited and wiggly and he reached his head up to sniff at all these arms looming over his head - with that the father physically pushed his kids away, jumped backwards and said to his kids "LEAVE IT ALONE, it's NOT friendly" :( :(
I was mortified, my dog can't even SNIFF a person without people thinking it's hostile beahviour :( :(

That's why he wears a halti- so I can steer his head away from people if he decides to sniff towards them, they usually think he's planning on eating them :( :( :(

> Then another, a group of girls walked past and called my dogs fat! My dogs are all perfect weight!!!

Bluemerlemum maybe this could have been a slang compliment (phatt)???? We get lots of kids says "ah you're dogs are SICK" which means Cool :-)
Paula xxx

> ah you're dogs are SICK" which means Cool :-)
>

Like WICKED????   :-)  :-)

Reading these comments with my mouth wide open. Not sure if the area I live in just has a lot of 'dangerous dogs' and people are used to them, or whether I am just lucky but I have never seen anyone get comments like this. It does make me worry about having a GSD in the future but there are a lot of them around here.

I've found that all this dangerous dogs stuff in the media has had an opposite effect- people think that if the dog isn't a staffy or a DDB, Shar Pei etc then it is perfectly fine to approach them without any fear. I have never met a vicious staffy in my whole life. I know that it doesn't mean there are none, but I have come across far more vicious JRTs and smaller dogs that tend to be treated more like babies than dogs.

I would start to wear headphones on walks if that was the reaction I got day-to-day, I couldn't bite my tongue!

> I would start to wear headphones on walks if that was the reaction I got day-to-day, I couldn't bite my tongue!

Ahh, but then you'd miss the nice comments :)

We passed a group of teenagers today who thought Buster was amazing :) Only one was brave enough to stroke him, but he did give Buster a nice long fuss while we had a little chat about big dogs. Even if the nice comments are few & far between, if you focus on them it makes the supid comments easier to live with :)

Unfortunatley the media is only parlty to blame for peoples reactions to dogs (the English Mastiff has no bad media attention that I've heard of). Mostly thier reactions are down to plain ignorance, and that goes both ways. I've had many toddlers and small children run up to Buster and give him a bear-hug, some people are not wary of dogs to the point they see nothing wrong in allowing a child to approach a strange dog & half strangle it Luckily for children that do this to Buster, he is patient and getting used to bear-hugs was part of his early training :)

Don't let potential ignorant comments put you off your chosen breed. 1000 ignorants comments will not take away the immense feeling of pride you feel when you over-hear somebody comment on how well trained/lovely your dog is :)

It's just plain rude. 

I have to admit that I too find Blue yes and very light eyes on a dog creepy and unattractive, I also find the molloser/bull breeds ugly, but wouldn't dream of saying that to an owner.

I personally love my dogs curly tails, think it helps with hygiene in that area, but have had people cringe and say they hate to see  a dogs anus on show??? 

Personal taste is one thing rudeness and total paranoia, lack of tolerance is another.


You have echoed my sentiments exactly, some people just like to think they have the right to run their mouths and are the authority on everything I can't count the times I've been told my daughter does not have ASD cos
she looks normal, I and her professor consultant are clearly wrong lol

What is one persons taste is anothers dislike it's what makes life interesting

Don't let potential ignorant comments put you off your chosen breed. 1000 ignorants comments will not take away the immense feeling of pride you feel when you over-hear somebody comment on how well trained/lovely your dog is :-)

Don't worry- nothing will stop me now I have looked into it so much. I am so excited to get a pup and start socialisation and training.