I'll concede he probably shouldn't have pushed the owner
What? If you run up on someone with a fist cocked and only get pushed then you got off easy.
The dog should have been on leash, but that did not look like a dog that was being aggressive. I mean, the UPS guy didn't hurt the dog, so no big deal either way, but I can't quite see what the need was for his reaction.
Really, it's the push that's way more defensible than the dog kick. Dogs annoy the ever living hell out of me but that dog was hardly threatening.
We had a dog that cowered in fear of the UPS truck, but was fine with FedEx or the post office. Maybe the kicking is corporate policy?
Having watched the video, I don't think the UPS guy was in the wrong. The dog was coming up so fast. It's pretty clear from the rest of the video that the dog is no threat, but that is only hind sight.
ogged definitely has told that story before.
It's hard to tell immediately from the video, but having watched it a few times I find it really hard to believe that that dog was being threatening (it does come up, but even ignoring its body language and all it stops before he goes near to it). Everything about that guy's reaction looks to me like he's just angry about something else and decided to take it out on the dog. The home owner's reaction looks a lot more like "Hey what the fuck!?" to me than any kind of actual threat, but at least there's that much aggression involved. I think he really just decided to stomp on a dog out of some kind of general nastiness rather than anything else - he doesn't even look to me like someone who felt threatened in any way.
I'm always suspicious of people who react aggressively/fearfully to dogs acting harmless around them though. I mean, lots of animals are ambiguous/scary if you aren't an expert in how to interact with them (even housecats take some experience to read). But dogs evolved alongside/in partnership with human beings for longer than any other animal out there and their body language isn't ambiguous in any actual way. What they're thinking/feeling is pretty straightforward.* So I'm not buying that the UPS guy (who, seriously, is going to be interacting with dogs a lot) would have been confused there.
*You can pretty much replace barking with the word "hey!" and get an accurate read on what the dog is feeling when it's doing that.
Also that is clearly a ridiculously friendly dog given that it hangs around looking vaguely affectionate even after that guy starts assaulting its owner. Most dogs would show at least some kind of reaction to that other than "NEW FRIEND!?" at that point.
I don't think the dog is threatening exactly, but it just comes so quickly from behind that I could see kicking on instinct before there was even enough time to register any details of the dog.
I think he really just decided to stomp on a dog out of some kind of general nastiness rather than anything else - he doesn't even look to me like someone who felt threatened in any way.
This is right. Once the owner comes up and he has a new target he completely ignores the super threatening dog.
Yeah, the UPS guy was clearly being a twat the whole way through that.
I'm confused as to whether the video has audio or not. You hear the dog yelp and then they're just pantomiming angry postures?
(even housecats take some experience to read)
Housecats are harder to read than dogs! The better you know housecats, the more aware you are that they can turn on you at any second.
AISIHMHB, I had a cat that was so vicious to strangers that the vet shows footage of him at conferences to illustrate territorial aggression in cats. Very sweet cat otherwise.
I think the UPS guy's thought process goes something like this "Another loose fucking dog." [kick] [dude approaches angry with him] "You've got to be fucking kidding me, get the fuck out of my face." I don't think he felt threatened in either case.
I saw an interview with the dog's owner, who is an older dude who claimed he didn't have a fist clenched, but was just thumbing behind him to say "I was sitting right there" meaning, I guess, that the dog wasn't "really" loose, or you shouldn't kick a man's dog where he can see you.
As for sound you hear, I think it's in the background of the guy recording this off his screen, not from the scene itself.
So he yelped in surprise when the UPS guy kicked the dog?
Dogs not on leashes deserve to be kicked. Full stop. We should be arguing instead about whether people who fail to kick them are in the wrong.
I'm basically with Moby in 11 and Urple on this one. If a dog startles you, kick it.
My most common dog interaction is that someone's friendly dog is being smelly and making gross noises and generally being too close to me, and I try to do the slow motion foot shove in a way that doesn't look mean to the owner, hoping that the owner will take over and call the dog to go slobber elsewhere.
If you run up on someone with a fist cocked and only get pushed then you got off easy.
His fist isn't cocked.
"When a terrier comes along, you must kick it."
Heebie, that doesn't even make sense.
Oh, I see ogged mentions this above. Whatever. It's always impossible to tell much from a video clip like this -- if it were anime, though, we'd know everything -- but it seems like the dog guy is, all things considered, pretty chill.
And yeah, people should have their dogs on a leash, but isn't this guy on his own property? If so, and if his dogs are friendly, which they sure seem to be, I'm not sure where the fault lies in the kicking -- though the UPS guy definitely comes off throughout the video like he's itching for a fight.
I guess my point is, context matters. I have no idea where this happened, but it doesn't seems like there's any meaningful equivalence with a case of huge dogs menacing a jogger on a trail located in an area that's notorious for packs of murderous strays. Again, though, without knowing much more, including what Bob is going to say, it's impossible to say anything other than that gswift is, as usual, reflexively defending the use of violence by someone wearing a uniform.
He doesn't take a step toward anybody and the only contact he initiates pushes back mammals that are way too close to him.
He seems to push the dog guy, who does appear to be pointing backward and also is slowing down in advance of the UPS guy (in other words not making a move to attack him), far harder than is warranted -- especially given that, based on what I'm seeing in the video, pushing the dog guy isn't appropriate at all.
Again, I can't tell for sure, but it looks like the UPS guy outweighs the dog guy by a good 30-50 pounds.
Outside with a dog it's too dark to eat.
The UPS guy outweighs the dog by maybe 200 lbs.
If I had to rank things from least weight to greatest, I'd say: uniform, dog, dog owner, UPS guy.
Having watched the video closely, I think it's obvious that the dog was a founding member of the German American Bund.
And maybe the UPS guy takes a little step toward the dog owner, but the kick at the dog really looks more innocuous than the last time I watched the video. It was more a nudge with the foot.
Oh, I blanked on the idea that the dog's probably in its own yard, so no reason to be on leash. If so, the UPS guy really is a jerk. Not an important jerk -- the kick wasn't hard enough to even piss the dog off, really -- but a jerk. A small dog runs up to you when you're in its yard, kicking it is a jerk thing to do, and he should have been apologetic, not aggressive, with the owner. The whole thing is really not important, but the dog is completely in the right, the owner is a little overexcitable, and the UPS guy is an ass who I wouldn't want to encounter in a really tense situation.
It's not the dog's yard. It's at some Alzheimer facility that the dog owner is visiting.
Oh, public place flips me back to everyone's kind of a jerk. UPS guy overreacted to the dog, owner overreacted to only minor dog-kicking (should have at least faked "sorry my off leash dog startled you" rather than being hostile), UPS guy escalated inappropriately to getting physical in response to jerky but not really threatening hostility.
They all suck. UPS guy still seems to me to be the most likely to get into a situation where he does something really problematic in the future, though.
The dog is a sweet, friendly dog. I kind of hate little dust mop dogs like that generally, but that's a dumb happy tail wagging little beast.
The idea that the UPS guy overreacted to the dog seems premised on the idea that norms about physical contact with dogs should be similar to those for physical contact with people. I agree the dog wasn't a threat, but I don't see what's wrong with kicking it. Even if I allow that the dog didn't come up fast enough to make the guy startle enough to justify a kick, I still don't see what's wrong with the kick.
If a person scares you or runs up on you, you can't kick them because something I read in church or Kant or the law or whatever. Those norms/laws don't apply for dogs. If it is your dog, you are, for example, allowed to use a shock collar to keep it in your yard. Physical, punitive disciple is very much with accepted standards of behavior for dogs. A not-so-vicious kick to tell the dog to go fuck himself seems well within norms.
That is, standards of behavior for how to treat dogs.
I was attacked by a viscous out of control German Shepherd when I was a toddler (so 9.2 pisses me off) and I have a consequent intuitive distrust of dogs. But if I had been in the UPS' guy's place and felt threatened or even just startled my instinct would have been to wheel that hand truck around and interpose it between myself and the dog like a shield which he doesn't even make the slightest move to do. So count me on team UPS guy is an asshole.
Feel free to ignore whatever apostrophe you please in 46 that makes it work. (I just woke up from a nap and I feel grouchy. Nothing kicking a little mop haired dog won't fix though so don't you worry. )
9.2 seems quite odd. Lots of people have a fear of dogs, and it's the dog owner's responsibility to keep their dog under control.
I generally sympathize with people who don't trust dogs, and the owner's wrong for not keeping his dog on a leash outside of an appropriate place. I guess, when I want to call the UPS guy a jerk, though, which I do, I agree with Barry that he wasn't really afraid or startled. At which point, while he didn't hurt the dog in any meaningful way, so we're not talking cruelty to animals, kicking at it the way he did is really pretty jerky in terms of interactions between people -- he either sees the owner or should know that they're probably right there, and it's the sort of thing that guaranteed pisses people off.
So, how you feel about the UPS guy is sort of determined by how you feel about whether he's entitled to be a jerk because the dog owner was wrong first. I tend to lose all sympathy for anyone the moment they escalate a situation, but that's just me.
37 - That's a nudge that definitely knocks the dog over and leaves it flopping around a bit. I mean, the dog isn't seriously harmed in the long run but it's not really a shove either.
Also re:44 there's no way that guy is reacting as a result of being startled or surprised. He sees those dogs coming from a ways off - the dog he kicks is barely around that curve when he sees them - and (deliberately, not quickly) turns to meet them, ignoring the other one entirely.
Finally I'm not convinced this was a situation where leashes should have been there. That guy wasn't just walking his dogs through the area, or even happening to leave them running around while visiting. Those were service dogs that worked there (with alzheimer's patients), which explains pretty tidily why they were hanging out on the property instead of tied down somewhere (and probably also why they're just absurdly cheery/friendly dogs to begin with). If "they should have been on leases!" applies in this case you might as well say that about dogs in fenced in lawns or inside houses.
46
a viscous out of control German Shepherd
That sounds Lovecraftian.
Also, now that we're past the 40th comment, I'll go off-topic: what do people think of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird sequel/prequel/retcon?
I haven't been following the story too closely, but am I alone in thinking that revealing that Atticus is racist is actually a pretty good idea? I mean, the kind of racism that leads to kangaroo courts, while obviously bad, isn't as big a societal problem as the kind of racism that acts personally polite and complains about "states rights" and "black culture." If his character in the new book is inconsistent with the original, then that's obviously annoying, but merely the fact that he's racist is not actually inconsistent. (So it depends a great deal on the details.) People need to be reminded that there are a hell of a lot of people who had nothing personally against black people and just didn't want them in their communities, right?
50.2: That doesn't make sense. The dog was clearly unrestrained and no inhibited in a run to the street. That's nothing at all like a fenced yard or indoors.
46: Well, viscous dogs are resistant to stress, so it's probably all right to kick 'em a bit.
I'm on team "lack of grace in handling wildlife is a vice just below over-readiness to violence", so: UPS guy, learn how to handle man's best friend with more grace. And, dog owner, learn how to handle those not exhibiting grace in handling animals with more grace.
What about kicking (gently) motor vehicles that come too close while one is walking, biking, etc? I think it's more justified, but it still makes me uncomfortable. I guess I'm on team "no touching".
52 -If you can clearly see a road in that video you've got some eyes. The ambiguous grey thing in the background? That's kind of a stretch. Large-ish healthcare facilities that deal with alzheimers that I've been to are on pretty decent sized campuses, if only to prevent patients who aren't on leashes from wandering off into dangerous situations, so it's not obvious that that's a public road even if it is one. (The driver certainly isn't parked on a road: that barely looks like a driveway.)
I will fender-slap if a car gets close enough to me to frighten me (very rarely, like every few years, and few means more like five than two). My thinking is that from inside the car, there's a chance the driver was zoned out enough to not realize they were way too close. If I bang on the fender, the driver's going to know that the way they were driving was a significant bad event.
Watching the news report from 40, the dog owner totally reminds me of Smokey from the "Over the line!" scene from The Big Lebowski. Bonus points: clip starts with Walter talking about his ex-wife's high-maintenance show dog.
|| For extreme conflict escalation in everyday circumstances, you can't beat this guy who accidentally armed robbed an IHOP. |>
Oh, public place flips me back to everyone's kind of a jerk.
Right there with you. And I now think that a gentle kick for the dog is, although not my first choice, probably totally fine.
territorial aggression in cats. Very sweet cat otherwise
My girlfriend's dog isn't quite at heebie-cat levels of insanity, but he's up there. We'll be out on a pleasant walk, and we'll see other humans/dogs, and suddenly he's growling, baring teeth, and pulling aggressively towards them with all his back hair standing straight up. And he looks fairly intimidating—like a German Shepherd's head on a Corgi's body.
He's never actually attacked anyone and is super sweet with the humans/dogs he's decided are part of the in-group. But it's awkward, because I'll pull on his leash with a "No!" and he chills out as I awkwardly wave at the other humans as if to communicate, "Hey guys, everything's cool, he won't really try to eat your face off."
Eh, still not fine, actually, but really not the end of the world.
a German Shepherd's head on a Corgi's body
This is what Viktor Krum was going for in the Triwizard Tournament, right?
57: Here's a link to the story that was deleted from that link. Good stuff.
a viscous out of control German Shepherd
That sounds Lovecraftian.
Balls. I bet my fucking spellcheck doesn't even know how to spell "eldritch"*
*No, it doesn't.
spell check, auto correct, whatevs.
The senior class mascot for my high school graduating class was Squid Viscous. (Following Cuff the Missing Lynx in the prior year, and Wham, Bam, Thank You Clam the year before.)
Not that it's relevant, just free-associating from inappropriate usages of viscous.
Speaking of viscous out of control German Shepherds, now I want to watch John Carpenter's The Thing.
Grrr. When I lived in the woods, my biggest annoyance was people's unrestrained dogs coming after me as I walked past their driveway. I'm not a huge fan of dogs, but obviously they're better than people, so I'm glad I didn't have to take my stick to any of them, but if I had, it would totally have been the owners' fault, and I would be most angry at them. People are so stupid.
See, I think people who have their dogs outside off the leash are just jerks -- I mean, not counting in dog parks and in your fenced back yards and places like that.
I'm sure YOUR DOG is very sweet and would never hurt anyone, fap fap fap.
But dogs have this job they do, which is to guard against and attack those outside their pack. And even when YOUR DOG normally doesn't do that, sometimes he will. Plus I don't know your dog. So all dogs kind of look like that dog to me.
tl;dr a dog rushes up at me, especially from behind, yeah, I'm kicking it. Or whatever else I need to do. Hells yeah.
I like dogs, but I am sick of many (most?) dog owners. "Don't blame the dog, blame the owner", but they're totally not to blame when their dog misbehaves. Want to let your half-trained pit mix off-leash on the trail* so it can knock bicyclists off the cliff! Sure, don't blame the dog! He's just a sweetie!
*where dogs are required to be leashed
My opinion may well be shaped by having lived here in Arkansas, where so many dogs roam free, and many of them are ill-trained pit bull mixes, who do, in fact, attack people on the street.
My kid and I, out on walks, have been rushed at by savagely barking dogs more than once. And on the heels of these dogs come their owners, insisting that these dogs won't hurt us. Yeah, okay, fuckstick. Thanks for terrifying my kid.
The dog looks like it's on private, not public property. It isn't walking around on the street or in a park or something, it's on the campus of a healthcare facility. It isn't on someone's lawn, but it's absolutely somewhere it has a right to be, and from what the video looks like it's not really on the edge of that property either. And the owner isn't visiting someone at the facility, he works there, and the dog also works there.
Even if it's on private property, unless it's restrained, it's a loose dog. That means it is free to attack people, and *will* attack people.
Now granted this is a small dog. It doesn't look like it could do much harm. So fine, whatever. (Though its worth remembering that even very small dogs have hurt people badly.)
Dogs do attack people. And unless you have a fence around them, or a leash on them, you are not in control of them. If you can't keep them from attacking people -- and the fact is, almost every dog owner I have encountered fails at this task -- then fence your animal or leash your animal.
Look: I don't hate dogs. I have one. I have always owned dogs. But (1) I train my dogs and (2) when I take my dogs out of our fenced yard, they are kept on leashes, except when we are in dog parks.
57, 62: That's a good reason for not concealed carrying.
57, 62 What was he thinking? He should have just knocked off the IHOP manager's side view mirror like any rational BMW owner would.
Unless the UPS guy had popped the curb and driven somewhere he wasn't supposed, I don't see how that's a place where you would expect a dog to be running free.
Whether or not he'd popped a curb he's clearly not on a street of any kind.
Also I'm pretty sure service dogs (of that kind) aren't typically on leashes because their entire function is to wander around interacting with people rather than being treated like dangerous wild animals or radioactive elements. The UPS guy may or may not have been genuinely scared (I'm very dubious about that claim given the way he responds/acts generally), but the dog wasn't behaving unreasonably and neither was the owner in that situation. I think people are responding as if this guy just brought his pet along when visiting someone and, yeah, that's not a great way to behave. But that's not the situation here.
That they guy brought his dogs there to console patients does not make it a service dog. That's an actual thing that involves training for the dog. I work near the school for the blind. They are always walking around training the dogs or the people using the dogs or both (I've never asked). Aside from the dogs all being bigger than this dog, the one common characteristic of a service dog that I have seen is that they don't dart off after strangers.
I don't think the dog was behaving unreasonably because I don't think dogs can reason sufficient for that to apply, but I do think that the dog owner was unreasonable in that he had an unrestrained dog in a place where others are around. I'd be very surprised if the senior living facility doesn't tell him to keep his dog at home from now on. Because if it darted like that somebody elderly with dementia, I think you are bound to upset somebody sooner or later.
Even if it's on private property, unless it's restrained, it's a loose dog. That means it is free to attack people, and *will* attack people.
This is absolutist bullshit. Take the dog in the OP. It doesn't even know what aggression looks like, even when it puts a boot to its face.
My kid and I, out on walks, have been rushed at by savagely barking dogs more than once. And on the heels of these dogs come their owners, insisting that these dogs won't hurt us. Yeah, okay, fuckstick. Thanks for terrifying my kid.
Having been the owner in this scenario more than once, I'm guessing they knew they'd fucked up, were trying to minimize the fear their pet had caused, and were apologetic afterwards. Also, they were right: the dog didn't hurt you.
The dog didn't hurt her in the same way the guy who pulled the gun on the IHOP manager didn't hurt him. When something or one is plainly aggressive around your small child, the stress involved is non-trivial, harmful, and not easy to forget.
Yeah, that's not an aggressive dog at all. I could sympathize with someone who was phobic about dogs, or even someone who was sort of totally unfamiliar with them to the point of having a reasonable but uninformed fear of getting bitten. But anyone familiar with dogs, that's a happy dog, not an aggressive one.
Maybe I'll go mug the IHOP by me. I ate there once. I think they put sugar on the eggs. It's like a temple to Type II diabetes.
You have to figure UPS drivers have a different take on dogs than the rest of us. Also, the line you can't cross is "did your dog scare someone?" not "did your dog hurt someone?" And the owner doesn't get to decide what's scary. Inconvenient, but there it is.
80: Fair enough. I suppose the owner should have made it explicit that the dog will not harm them beyond the emotional damage it has already done. It's hard to get that out when you're trying to also call your dog back.
83: You might be surprised at how easily scared some people are.
84: What makes me hostile to the UPS driver is that I don't think he was actually scared. Dogs shouldn't be off leash if they're going to scare anyone, but if your dog is both tiny and friendly, as this one looks to be, it's less unreasonable to be casual about it, and I think the owner was right if he believed that his dog didn't in fact scare anyone.
I don't see how a few small kicks here and there to enforce the norm hurt anybody.
77: Pretty much every article has referred to the dog as a service dog, I'm not just making it up because he also happens to work there. Also how service dogs act depends an awful lot on what their actual role is, and at a facility for alzheimers patients I'm guessing that wandering around an actually interacting with them is a big part of that, because having him carefully guide it around from person to person on a short leash would be ludicrous.
85 is right - even if the owner doesn't get to decide what is scary that doesn't mean that the person who got scared does either. It's perfectly possible for something to be not at all scary and yet still scare someone because they have a phobia or has just at that moment learned about their existence or something.
(My perspective on this is a little warped -- I had Dogbreath off-leash in our park all the time. But she was super shy of people and other dogs, other than the ones she knew well and liked, so I relied on her to give everyone a wide berth.)
Um, because kicking hurts things? That being it's point?
And for all that the dog got up and wandered around again in a friendly way (see: not even remotely dangerous seeming) doesn't mean it didn't get a pretty sharp kick too. It was certainly enough to knock it over onto its back and get it to yelp pretty loudly.
88.1: I know nothing but what is in the pieces linked by ogged. Based on the quotes of the owners in the link in 40, I don't think the characterization of "service dog" is accurate.
79: I get that the owners are generally trying to make it right, but that's the attitude that drives me up the wall. E.g., I should be able to take my kid on a walk without having a dog charge the stroller.* If your dog charges the stroller, you've screwed up. You've screwed up less than you would if your dog had bitten my kid, but it's reasonable for me to be pissed, because here is my evidence: strange dog is charging stroller. Hmm. Is dog obviously so well-trained that fear would be silly? It's not obviously so well-trained that it's not charging strollers.
*this happened. turned out to be a very friendly Siberian husky, but still went right for the Calabat, who was eight weeks old. I was right to grab the dog.
I'm not going to tell you what 93 was to.
88.2: In every place where I've ever lived, except in certain specified areas, it is illegal to have an dog out in public unless you have control of the dog. I think that does mean that if the dog is unrestrained and moving at you, your opinion as to whether or not you should be scared is all that matters.
90: In every place I've ever lived, it is completely legal to cause minor hurt to a dog as a means of getting it to do what you want to do. Perhaps a rolled-up newspaper is more traditional, but you can't carry one of those with you while you deliver packages.
91: What does he say that's not compatible with that?
I looked up the actual story because I have an internet connection and it absolutely says that it was a service dog that works with the assisted living patients.
Also: well, good thing it wasn't out in public then? And it's ludicrous to say that the only thing that counts in determining whether something is scary is if someone reacts to it with fear. Phobia, for example, is basically the word we have for something that causes people to react with fear but that isn't itself a scary thing. (People have phobias about, say, balloons but no one says that they're afraid when someone attacks them with a knife because they have an attacked-with-a-knife phobia.)
And come now now 95.2. "Legal" doesn't mean anything remotely close to "ok" or "reasonable", and even if so there's a pretty enormous difference between swatting a dog with a rolled up newspaper or even giving it a shove and kicking it hard enough in either the head or chest (ambiguous on video) to flip it over onto its back. That's well into "could cause genuine harm" territory.
My kid (6 years old) is more than usually allergic to dogs ("more than usually" here meaning not just hay-fever type reaction, but swelling and hives; not anaphylaxis, thank goodness). Accordingly we have to worry not just about aggressive dogs but also about friendly dogs who just want to jump up and lick her. I really wish people in parks and on trails would leash their dogs. I also wish the incorrect belief that certain types of dogs do not cause allergic reactions (as opposed to "are less likely to cause allergic reactions in most people") were less wide-spread.
96: That still just says the dogs were there to work with residents. That's not a "service dog." They might be service dogs, but that's not enough to establish that they are.
98: The post office usually uses Mace. This seems better than that, especially near an assisted living facility.
I'm not sure I understand 97. If the delivery drivers are expected to go there, they can expect dogs to be restrained or under control regardless of whether it is private property.
And I don't see how being concerned about uncontrolled dogs is anything like a phobia. In the U.S., about 1,000 people a day need to go to the emergency room for a dog bite.
There's a dog run at the park near my house. I've not had any problems personally, but a greyhound killed a cockapoo. I think I linked to it here at the time because "cockapoo" is a great word.
95.1: The argument was about whether a person's fear should be the deciding factor in legality. I pretty frequently have people become scared of my dog when he's happy, leashed, and ignoring them. An out of control dog rushing people is a legitimate cause for concern, should be illegal, but is also a really common*, physically harmless consequence of dog ownership, at least for those of us without yards or easy access to dog parks.
*Common in the sense that it happens to a lot of owners, not that it happens frequently to a lot of owners.
101: especially near in an assisted living facility. What you can see in the background is almost certainly their parking lot, so he's well into the property as well.
102: And yet you were talking about public property, which it wasn't. If it doesn't make a difference one way or the other then why bother bringing it up. And plenty of other news stories working from that one directly used the phrase 'service animal' so I'm not sure how fine grained a distinction you want to be drawing.
Also now you're just getting loony. Is the claim really that if you show up at a facility which has dogs working there and are fully on the property and two of them run over to you and you're not scared then it's totally fine to lash out and kick one hard enough to knock it over onto its back?
I've been bitten by dogs several times. Once quite badly. I don't think the scars are visible any more, although they were for many years. The owner in that instance behaved so badly that I'm still angry about it if I bring it to mind, and I was 13 when I was bitten. The dog did pretty seriously try to kill me, as in went for my throat, and when I managed to find it off and protect my face, it went for my thigh.
Although I don't personally get bothered by friendly dogs, and quite like dogs generally, a lot of dog owners expect you to give their dog the benefit of the doubt when their behaviour is far from obviously friendly, and when they should be under closer control. I've had big dogs rush at xelA when he was in the pram, he's been knocked over by friendly but over-enthusiastic dogs, and I've had dogs take a good go at biting me a few times but where they've missed because I moved my leg, or stepped back.
In basically none of those instances did any of the dog owners give a shite, basically.
My Dad took matters into his own hands a couple of times. Once when I was bitten by a terrier when I was a toddler, he drop-kicked the offending dog over the owners wall. The owner was indignant, too, apparently. Then, when my sister got bitten by a semi-feral collie that one of our neighbours had -- after several warnings that if he didn't rein the dog in, there'd be consequences -- he just quietly walked round to their house, knocked on the door, and when the guy opened it, he punched him full in the face.
83 [and prior] And the owner doesn't get to decide what's scary. Inconvenient, but there it is.
97 And it's ludicrous to say that the only thing that counts in determining whether something is scary is if someone reacts to it with fear. Phobia, for example, is basically the word we have for something that causes people to react with fear but that isn't itself a scary thing.
102 And I don't see how being concerned about uncontrolled dogs is anything like a phobia.
Perhaps because that was talking about determining what is and isn't scary. See, I would have assumed that it was obvious that I was talking about the thing I literally was talking about rather than something else.
I have told someone to their face that if their dog bit me, I'd kill it, and then beat the shit out of them. A totally empty threat, as I'm not remotely capable of the the former, and the latter is also vanishingly unlikely.
But it did work, when someone thought that their Dane/Wolfhound cross snarling and snapping at me was funny.
An out of control dog rushing people is a legitimate cause for concern, should be illegal, but is also a really common*, physically harmless consequence of dog ownership, at least for those of us without yards or easy access to dog parks.
This is the giant shrug that drives non-owners of dogs insane. Especially ones with small children.
Also, if this is a consequence of not having a yard or access to a dog park, maybe you should consider not having a dog.
You seem to be ignoring the centuries-old bond between people and dogs, Mobes. WHAT ABOUT THE VELDT?!!!?
And yet you were talking about public property, which it wasn't.
I said "public" but I very deliberately did not say "public property." That is, the area was open to the public, even if it was private.
On the veldt, people who wouldn't kick a dog were eaten by dogs.
I think on private property, the owners (and by extension, people who work there) are allowed to use their judgment, only worrying about the actual safety of people on the property. That actual, individual dog, looks to me from how it reacts to being kicked pretty hard to be about as safe an animal as one could hope for, and if the management wants to let it run free, people who are uncomfortable about that can and should deal. On public property, the rules are different.
(Also, dogs that people bring to hospitals to interact with the patients are a thing that they do get training and certifications for. It's not the same as guide dogs, but it's a real, organized thing. You need a reliably goodtempered, nonaggressive dog to deal with demented people without freaking out.)
Therapy dogs, they're called. We've had them in the past. They're not service dogs, though. That's a completely different animal.
This is the giant shrug that drives non-owners of dogs insane.
I take it then that you didn't read any of my previous comments?
maybe you should consider not having a dog
I thought that's where this was going.
113: I don't see how you expect somebody in the delivery business to "deal". It's not in any way a novel problem. The post office has a policy about not delivering the mail where there is an unrestrained dog because they have found that having the mail carrier "deal" resulted in an unsustainably large number of people being bitten by dogs. I can't find a specific UPS policy, but clearly they are going to encounter similar problems doing similar work. If there was some sort of prior notice given to UPS or the driver, I might see it differently.
119: My remedy is just to not get upset if, when the dog runs away from you, somebody kicks it.
It is an unfortunate characteristic of dogs that they are usually drawn to express exciting or alarming interest toward exactly the person who least wants or knows how to deal with them, but it seems to be pretty close to universal among dogs. That is, it is absolutely true that if you are calm and unafraid around dogs, they are far less likely to bite you, jump on you, run at you, or do anything else alarming. I view that as a useful thing to know and a valuable thing to try to teach others, but certainly not something you can or should expect from most or all of the people you encounter.
See, I think people who have their dogs outside off the leash are just jerks -- I mean, not counting in dog parks and in your fenced back yards and places like that.
Agreed completely. Our little asshole (who is alternatively the sweetest little pup) has slipped out the back door a couple of times. The last time, I spent several minutes talking to a neighbor girl in her sandbox while I waited for the little asshole to wear down enough to be catchable and she told me very bravely about how hard she tried not to cry the last time he got out. We are in the process of getting a fence put in. (Dachshund personality in a pinscher body. Gorgeous, affectionate little asshole.)
120: Mostly, I expect someone in the delivery business to use their judgment. If you're phobic about loose dogs, that's probably an ill-chosen line of work. If you're not phobic about them, have some sense and don't kick a happy, nonthreatening dog in a place where it's permitted to be by the owners. If there's an actually threatening dog, do what you need to in order to protect yourself.
That specific guy, interacting with that specific dog, was being stupid.
A neighbor occasionally walks his Rhodesian Ridgeback and German Shepherd off leash. Last time we encountered them (on leash, thank God) he "fake" gave them the command to attack. "What? It was a joke."
Also? Leaving your dog outside in the front yard where *you* know you have an invisible fence? Dick.
I think in that line of work, I'd think you'd develop a bit of an involuntary reaction to anything furry and coming at you. The dog was not obviously happy or nonthreatening to me except by its actions after the kick. I don't think it's reasonable to hold the driver responsible for knowing what would happen after the kick.
124.2: My neighbor had one of those, but he put up a sign.
121: I don't have a problem with someone getting physical with a dog that's scaring them, even if, as in Cala's story they err on the side of caution. But if you think the odd kick from a stranger is going to correct misbehavior ... you may be overestimating the message discerning ability of dogs.
That IHOP story is really something.
We had a dog that ate June bugs until he threw up and then went back to eating June bugs until he threw up. I'm not expecting the dog to discern anything. I'm expecting it to back off for just the once.
128: I don't read Reddit much. Do they always pull down threads just because somebody is confessing to a crime in them?
We had dogs that ate with their faces pointing down and a lot of the food would fall right out of their mouths. Dumbest beasts ever.
You're supposed to get them elevated food bowls to stop that.
I think maybe people would object less to my views on dogs if I'd spent less time last week talking about eating them.
Eating with my face turned towards the floor sounds like something that would cause me to occasionally drop food too.
Anyway remember you belong to a species whose members pretty universally have had times where they took a bite out of the insides of their own mouths when trying to eat things. I'd have to rate the dogs higher than us if we're going by this kind of evaluation.
Kids bite their fingers surprisingly often while holding food.
It is an unfortunate characteristic of dogs that they are usually drawn to express exciting or alarming interest toward exactly the person who least wants or knows how to deal with them
This isn't limited to dogs. If you saw someone walking towards you, giving you sidelong glances, tensing up, you might start getting a little nervous about their intentions too.
Anyway, I'm willing to disavow any plans to eat* a dog except in survival circumstances or while traveling in places where eating a dog is a culturally-sanctioned occurrence or when I am the guest of a person from such a culture regardless of where.
*knowingly
130: Can't be sure, but I assumed the original poster himself pulled it down in embarrassment, after dozens of people told him that he was in the wrong.
I mean, I think the guy would have been justified in kicking the manager until the manager let go of his arm.
One of our neighbor's dogs is a problem. Medium-sized chihuahua mix, fairly aggressive. Her owner takes her out into their yard, unleashed, and a couple of times a week it runs out of the yard, over their back fence or under their front fence, and the owner has to go running after it. One such time it charged into our yard and attacked my wife; fortunately, she was wearing thick pants at the time. Last fall it got out when the owners weren't home, ran around the neighborhood causing a ruckus, bit someone's leg, eventually got the cops involved to track down the landlord and thus the owners.
We just got the city to issue them a citation for an unlicensed, unleashed, aggressive dog. Waiting to see what happens next, and in the back of my head plotting exactly how hard I should kick it if it ever comes towards me.
I didn't know you could get a medium-size if you have a chihuahua mix.
I'm not going to look this up because of my new resolve, but I think I read somewhere that the chihuahua was breed to be eaten by Mexicans who didn't have access to pork.
I take it then that you didn't read any of my previous comments?
No, I did. I found them pretty dismissive of people's fear of dogs they don't know.
you can't kick them because something I read in church or Kant
If you're Lutheran they're the same thing.
I used to at this Korean restaurant in Beijing called "dog meat city." I only purposely ordered dog meat once, but in retrospect I was probably eating dog every time I went there about twice a week. The bimimbap was excellent, and I didn't actually see the Chinese name until the second to last time I went. (The main sign was in Korean, and then they had the Chinese sign kind of tucked away).
I have a fear of aggressive dogs, also from a slightly traumatic experience as a small kid, and while I am fine with most dogs, I hate dogs running at me even if I can tell they're friendly. I might instinctively kick a small strange dog running at me. Also, biting isn't the only problem. Dog scratches from overzealous dogs can get infected, and generally I don't want dog fur/slobber/paw prints/snags in my clothing. If I'm wearing nice clothes, keep your dog the hell away from me. When I visit friends with dogs (or small children), I dress accordingly. If a toddler came up to me and left muddy prints on my clothes and the parents told me the kid was sweet and meant well and I should be happy to interact with it, I'd think they were idiotic jerks. Luckily, I currently live in a neighborhood with great dog owners who also don't let dogs jump or slobber on people unless one expresses a willingness to pet them (which I frequently do if the dog seems well behaved and I'm not in nylon stockings or something).
FWIW the UPS guy seemed like a jerk, but kicking the dog was not the jerkiest part of his behavior.
While I'm serially commenting, the most aggressive dog I knew was one of those little mop haired dogs. Also, I've had dog owners tell me how amazingly sweet their dog is and invite me to pet it, only to have the dog go full psychotic. The dog owners are always shocked, acting like, "oh my god he's never done that before!" So yeah, dog owners are not reliable judges of their own dogs character.
127: See, I don't think I erred on the side of caution. I think I was exactly right (basically intercepted dog and had it by the scruff; no kicking) to judge that I didn't have to wait for the dog to demonstrate that it wasn't going to eat my two-month-old before I intervened.
Part of this is the area in which I live. Lots of dogs, lots of dogs poorly secured, and a sort of libertarian indifference to caring about training their dogs. Lots of dogs basically unsecured; I get chased about once every other week on my running route by a pair of floor-mop type dogs. So my confidence that I'm surrounded by gentle well-trained dogs isn't high; on the trails it's a little different, because almost everyone lets their dogs off leash (illegally) and the dogs are usually just happily trotting along, sometimes following me instead of their owners, but most of the time they go back. (A border collie followed me home once, but shiv wouldn't let me keep it.)
The solution to bad people with dogs is good people with guns.
I'm with Moby. Partly as a holdover from a free-range dog childhood.
149
Or good dogs with bad guns and bad dogs with good guns. Oh wait...
What if I die without ever finding out "Who's a good boy?"
"Bad dogs with good guns" would make an awesome animated children's television series.
"Cannibal Gluten" would be a good name for a band.
Don't worry 152 - that question has already been answered!
I guess webcomics all just plagiarize each other.
If it was a little kid or a parent of a little kid who kicked the dog, that could be reasonable, even if the kid wandered off the street into the Alzheimer care/home.
But delivery drivers should know how to interact with dogs, just like they should be aware of round-abouts and houses with doors only on the alley. And a kick was not a good way to deal with the situation.
"We had a dog that ate June bugs until he threw up and then went back to eating June bugs until he threw up. I'm not expecting the dog to discern anything. I'm expecting it to back off for just the once."
And dogs that go to college are smarter than average!