Quote:
Originally Posted by FireFly
The worst part of adults being scared of dogs is their transferring that fear to their children. Dogs can sense your fear and if you teach your children to be afraid of them, they are more succeptible to attack themselves. I see this every day when i walk my little Boston Terrier up in Saddletown. Astrid is a curious and friendly dog and wants to make friends with everyone; children, parents, other dogs, squirrels, cats, she doesn't care. But when people start tripping over themselves to get off the sidewalk to avoid her, it just makes her more curious about them. She will stretch out her leash as far as possible to get as close as possible to people who purposely avoid her. If people just walk by, she ignores them.
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You are the worst type of dog owner. Keep your fataing dog away from me and my family, please. If approaching people look anxious about your dog, then remove your dog from the situation by pulling its leash in right to your body, stepping to the side and commanding your dog to sit until the people have passed so they can be assured it's a safe, trained dog that is being demonstrably controlled by its conscientious master.
The fact that multiple people have fallen over themselves trying to get away from your dog should be an obvious signal to you that you are not handling this dog appropriately. My guess is you have one of those really long retractable leashes and you just let the dog run it out and do its thing instead of being in proper control.
And what is your definition of your dog wanting "to be friends with everyone"? Like, how does that want manifest itself? Because if you think it's okay for your dog to approach strangers you are absolutely wrong and I promise you a great many people don't want anything to do with your dog and it is your responsibility to prevent those interactions from happening.
Finally, parents passing on a healthy fear of the power and unpredictability of dogs is called proper parenting. Negligent parenting would be letting your pit bull play with a newborn, as an example. Now I know you'll say I'm passing on an unhealthy fear of dogs, but I disagree. The four untrained rotties that live next door would eat my kids given the chance, so we do have to prepare my children for the worst part of coexisting in a city with dogs, as would any of you if you lived where I live. My daughter is still scared of all dogs and we are working on that. My son loves them.