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Dog Walking Etiquette

Thursday, May 20, 2021

Dog Walking Etiquette Awareness

As a qualified, certified and experienced animal behaviourist, a common behavioural issue that I am regularly called upon to help clients with is: dog-dog reactivity.
Other than working on the issue itself, the main problem that these reactive dog owners are having, is other people in public places allowing their dogs to run up to them off lead.

This sadly can undo all the hard work and progress that the owner was making with their reactive dog, as well as causing a potentially dangerous situation to happen. This can also be the case for dogs who are kept on lead for a variety of other reasons such as in season, recovering from an operation, in training, assistance dogs etc.

I would love to help these owners by spreading the awareness of ‘dog walking etiquette’ to all dog owners, that if they see a dog who is on lead, especially if they have signage on their coats/ leads and or wearing muzzles, that they need to call their dogs back to them and keep them under control until they are safely passed.

You can be prosecuted for your dog being out of control in a public place under section 3 of the Dangerous dogs act 1991. This includes not being able to call your dog back!
If someone has their dog on lead and you allow your dog to run up to them causing an aggressive reaction, then it’s your dog that is out of control in a public place - not theirs, as is commonly misunderstood.

To spread awareness, I have created a free poster and I would be extremely grateful if you would please share this with all of your family, friends and associates to help me spread this awareness and help owners work together and be more considerate when out in public.
Owners allowing their dogs to run up to others without checking permission first is rarely done with malicious intent but rather due to a lack of awareness, so the more we can spread the word and educate people the less this will hopefully happen.

As well you being able to share this picture on social media the poster is also available to download for free in A4 or A3 on my website www.natures-therapies.co.uk/online

Thank you in advance for helping to spread Dog Walking Etiquette Awareness and please also remember to keep your dog’s on lead around livestock!

Liz Marden BSc(Hons) C.C.B C.A.B C.C.T C.A.T
www.natures-therapies.co.uk
liz.naturestherapies@gmail.com
07738 268400

Gallery

Poster explaining Dog Walking Etiquette