So as a dog lover and owner of multiple dogs, I’m sorry that you have to go through this. I try and keep my dogs and shorter leashes when we are around people and pull them back if they start to approach people uninvited. One thing I saw once when walking by 2 ladies with my 3 dogs is that as we were about to pass her, she pulled out a little spray canister that I think was an air canister, not pepper spray, lol. She didn’t use it but was ready to if my dogs got too close to her. You could tell she had some anxiety with dogs. I thought this was a great way for her to take control of maybe a bad dog owner letting a dog approach her to closely. The spray wouldn’t hurt the dog but could prevent it from getting to her if the owner didn’t. Some dogs might be set off from this but I still think it’s a reasonable option if dog owners don’t contain their dogs. And people should feel the right to walk down a public street peacefully without being accosted by a dog. I had a dog I was working with in reactivity once and asked someone to please give me a minute to get off a narrow path to give both our dogs space. Well, she thought it was a great idea to plow right past me in close quarters with my highly reactive dog I was working with. Not a good idea. Thankfully I had full control of her but she certainly regretted going past me that close and not giving me a chance to move off to the side of the path. People are just dumb sometimes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please retract that retractable leash. Thank you.

(retractable leashes are so so despised. Vets do not condone).

Another dog owner and lover

Agree though retractable leashes are not the only culprit.

There is a woman in my neighborhood who walks her dog ("walks") by attaching an 8 foot rope leash and then tying it around her waist. This way she's hands free for her phone and coffee. Her dog is *everywhere*. It is all I can do not to knock her stupid coffee out of her hand and scream at her.

Wow! We might be neighbors! I see a woman like that in our neighborhood too. I also see a different woman, who we nicknamed “Long Leash Lola”, who walks two dogs each on leashes about 20ft long while she doom scrolls. They go way into all the yards along the sidewalk.

This has been happening a lot as of late. It's like people have zero common sense. Not everyone wants to pet your dog, get jumped on or have their crotch sniffed. Dog owners really need to control their dogs and that's the best thing to say, "Control your dog."

Not sure if it's the snow/cold temps, but had several aggressive dog encounters in my neighborhood when it's never been an issue in the past. It doesn't help there isn't as much space to yield with all the snow/ice everywhere, but my guard is definitely up now.

Ugh, I'm sorry, OP. I keep my dog on a shorter leash to avoid such behaviors. I wouldn't like to be accosted by strange dogs every time I leave my building! Gross.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please retract that retractable leash. Thank you.

(retractable leashes are so so despised. Vets do not condone).

Another dog owner and lover

Agree though retractable leashes are not the only culprit.

There is a woman in my neighborhood who walks her dog ("walks") by attaching an 8 foot rope leash and then tying it around her waist. This way she's hands free for her phone and coffee. Her dog is *everywhere*. It is all I can do not to knock her stupid coffee out of her hand and scream at her.

Someone in our neighborhood uses that and I always think it looks so dangerous

Two ideas -

1. Turn your back to the dog and fold arms - that is body language dogs understand
2. Say you’re allergic if you want a slightly less confrontational approach

I love dogs but don’t always want them on me all the time randomly, so I will usually say something friendly like, “you’re adorable but I don’t want to do laundry today” and gently push them away.

Also it goes without saying, don’t be the dog owner who lets your dog do this to people. We had an older lady in our neighborhood almost fall and get hurt when a friendly dog leaped on her unexpectedly. It was scary.

Anonymous wrote:Please retract that retractable leash. Thank you.

(retractable leashes are so so despised. Vets do not condone).

Another dog owner and lover

Agree though retractable leashes are not the only culprit.

There is a woman in my neighborhood who walks her dog ("walks") by attaching an 8 foot rope leash and then tying it around her waist. This way she's hands free for her phone and coffee. Her dog is *everywhere*. It is all I can do not to knock her stupid coffee out of her hand and scream at her.

Agree with PP. I speak up and I do not worry about being rude. The one I say most often is:

"Can you shorten your dog's leash? I need more space."

This solves like 90% of issues with dogs getting in other people's business. It's wild to me when dog owners don't do this automatically when they are in busy places, because a long leash is a tripping hazard and makes it very hard for them to intervene if their dog gets activated by a person or another dog. The most ridiculous one is when a dog will start getting too aggressive or friendly with another person or dog, and the owner will walk over to try and get between or to pick the dog up. The dog is on a leash! That's literally what the leash if for. Just shorten the leash and none of this is an issue. You can let the leash back out once you are clear of other people.

Some people have no common sense. Calling them out is fine -- maybe with enough verbal reminders, they will learn.

Please retract that retractable leash. Thank you.

(retractable leashes are so so despised. Vets do not condone).

Another dog owner and lover

Anonymous wrote: "Can you please keep your dog away from me." Any suggestions?

This is fine. Straightforward does not mean rude. Plus, these people are being rude to you, why you owe them politeness back?

I say this as a dog owner and lover.

I live in a very dense area, I often can't walk from my apartment building to the parking lot without being accosted by someones dog. Its getting really frustrating. One dog owner let their dog brush up against me with droll getting all over my coat. Obviously I try to move out of the way but usually they have those long leashes they can't seem to pull in. They also let their dog go up to anyone and jump with dirty muddy paws. Again I try to move out of the way but I'm not going to try and out run a dog just to get where I'm going. On top of this there is dog poop all over the sidewalks now so I have to dodge that. No one is picking up after their dogs here it seems. What should one say? Anything I've thought of to say sounds really rude. "Can you please keep your dog away from me." Any suggestions?