An unfamiliar off-leash dog isn’t rendered safe because his owner says, “It’s okay, my dog is friendly.”
Photo by Emma, Portland
Writing on the Mother Nature Network takes on 11 of the cliches that dog owners often utter about their pets. According to author Jaymi Heimbuch, not only are some of these dangerous, but many of them are simply wrong: “When it comes to dogs, owners sometimes have tunnel vision, seeing the world only from the perspective of their own dog or their own dog-training experience. This often leads to owners tossing out sentences that, in an ideal world, would never be uttered.”
Among the statements in question are:
- “It’s okay, my dog is friendly”
- “Oh, my dog would never bite”
- “He just wants to play” and
- “He’s doing that to try and be dominant.”
Do you agree or disagree? Are there any other statements you’d like to see stricken from the record?