Whew! Close Call with a German Shepherd

Ugh. We actually fired a contractor because he kept bringing his dog with him to do work on our property - a pitbull in a 4-door sedan, unneutered and admittedly a problem dog, with the windows open. *eye roll* First I caught him with the dog in my driveway (why do contractors do that? Who the hell said they could use it?) with my poultry scratching in the front yard, then he'd park out front where he couldn't see his dog or car so he'd have no idea if it jumped out.

Finally, I just told him his dog wasn't welcome in our neighborhood and to stop bringing it to work. We stopped using him and won't recommend him.
 
most of the local contractors here bring their dogs to work with them. That's why the Home Depot manager's idea to no longer allow dogs fell through.
 
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Well, I'm sorry, but I think this is completely inappropriate. Of course, Home Depot didn't ask me what I thought (the nerve)!

Dogs are not people and people have no business infringing their dogs on others who may not appreciate shopping with a pit bull.

I know there are good dogs and bad dogs. I've been a dog lover all my life and I know the breeds. It truly does depend on the nature and the raising. We are even thinking about getting a Great Pyrenes for our chickens and the fact that we're going to get a couple of nubian goats in the Spring and there's coyotes around here.

TrystInn - don't blame you a bit for firing the contractor. I would have too.
 
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Many contractors keep dogs with them to ensure when they walk away from their vehicle and are on the job that their tools and equipment don't walk away.
 
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The first thing that determines a dogs end nature is the training and experience of the owner not the dog. IMHO the vast majority of people get dogs for all the wrong reasons and are not prepared to put in the endless hours it takes to have a dog that is a pleasure to be around.
 
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The first thing that determines a dogs end nature is the training and experience of the owner not the dog. IMHO the vast majority of people get dogs for all the wrong reasons and are not prepared to put in the endless hours it takes to have a dog that is a pleasure to be around.

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Very well said and true.
 
I've actually met people who say they plan to get a GSD like mine because they are "naturally obedient" I should let them borrow mine for a couple days, maybe see the error of their ways, but I wouldn't intrust my babies to idiots
 
The worse attack I've ever experenced came from a Standard Poodle. I had an 8 inch screwdriver I was just ready to sink into his chest when the owner stopped the dog. I wasn't afraid of the dog but would have killed it to stop it.
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Please don't hate pitbulls and other dogs like them, if somebody gets hurt by a pitbull or another large doge, most of the time its the owner's fault. I know people that work in pitbull rescues and I've seen how sweet these dogs are, becausethey are not meant to be people's aggressive, but then you have those dumb owners who try to make their dogs badass or don't know how to train working dogs with lots of drive, and that's how you end with tragedies.
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I mean, look at how tolerant a pitbull can be when its owner knows what he is doing. This is Moses :3

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This all comes back to the title of the Barbara Wodehouse book (or maybe it was just the title of a chapter in one of her books) of some twenty-plus years back . . . "No Bad Dogs, Only Bad Owners" is how I recall the brief title, but it speaks volumes.

I subscribe to her argument. Shepards are shepards (as opposed to shepherds, who, in the main, walk on two feet and are generally not as fuzzy!)

The best dog I ever had was of another proscribed breed, an English Bulldog, Lady Elspeth de Dubhglas (Elspeth being Elizabeth -- all of her litter were named after English princes and princesses). As a breed, there's not a mean or ugly bone in their bodies. But the insurance companies list them as a breed for which they will not provide liability coverage.

I believe I raised her right, but go on to say that I never saw a mean one, and would add they that they have a temperament to withstand the occasional, unintentional/unknowing rough , or even cruel, handling that a child might dish out, as mild inconvenience. In fact, my biggest challenge with Elspeth was introducing children new to her.

Bulldogs are a brachycephalic breed. Big word. It applies to bulldogs of any sort, pugs, Boston Terriers . . . Their necks are so short and compact/dense that they snort, wheeze and snore (ask me how I know about the snoring!) a lot.

Bulldogs are also gregarious. Unlike Shepards (and not impugning the nature of those fine dogs -- again a difference in the purposes for which they are bred), thier first regard of a stranger is of a new friend. I watched Elspeth most around small children when they were about. That brachycepahlic thing . . . Bulldogs are dense. Elspeth was mid-weight as her breed goes but made 55 pounds. If she were to ignore my commands (as others have said, a dog on its own mission will ignore a command) and go to greet a small child, she could easily knock him/her down. The next act, without physical intervention, would be Elspeth doing nothing more harmful than licking the child's face (not that it ever got that far) but making bulldogly snorting noises of happiness, that might soudnd to a child who has just been decked as a snarl of a dog about to rip his throat out.

My pre-emptive move, once the child was about, was to first make introductions. Then to get down and the floor, play and wrestle with Elspeth a bit, so the youngster could see that her sounds were harmless and not to be helped, and that she was playing. That paid off more than once when some of the less-well-behaved kids (not mine, I don't have any) got to rough-housing with her.

I could walk Elspeth at or around home without her leash and she'd obey every command I ever gave her. Away from our immediate environs, though, I'd leave the leash loose but on. As good and obedient a dog as ever was in environments I'd anticipated and trained her in. But she was still a dog, prone to parts of her nature that I could not know, and she was on a leash away from home . . .

I'm a firm believer in "No Bad Dogs, Only Bad Owners" and will either train, control or leave my dog home as the situation calls for,

You ran into someone to whom that has not occurrred. And the result is on them, not the dog.
 

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