Just need to rant a bit about a recent experience where I considered adopting a shepard-breed from a ranch rescue. First off, I believe they’re well-intentioned people. They just seem to have this ignorance when it comes to what it takes to have a dog in an urban area.
1 – They didn’t like that I don’t take dogs to the dog park.
Like, seriously?? Dog parks are probably the worst place to socialize and/or exercise a dog. The percentage of shitty dog owners at a dog park is much higher than the overall average because dog parks are a prime resource for lazy dog owners. When I said I bring my dogs to sniffspots, they had no idea what that was.
2 – They kinda freaked out when I asked if the dogs are muzzle and crate trained and insisted that type of training isn’t necessary for their dogs.
OMG…ensuring that a dog can tolerate being crated and muzzled doesn’t mean that they’re going to be locked away 23 hours a day. Muzzles and crates are safety and management tools that are sometimes needed. They become torture devices if you need to use them with a dog who has never been trained on them.
I also asked if the dogs were leash trained and they said not really because the dogs are used to just running around on the ranch.
Again…I think these are well-intentioned people but they don’t seem to realize that their dogs might be better set up for success if they learned about urban / suburban dog lifestyles and prepared their dogs to transition into them.
Worst of all, the kind of people that “match” their preferences—dog park goers who don’t train / manage their dogs—are awful dog owners (esp in a city or suburb).
Super aggravating.
submitted by /u/mizaludbasm
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