Hot weather brings out irresponsible dog owners

If there is one thing set to bring outrage in the hot weather, it is irresponsible dog owners.  This last weekend was one of those rare occasions in the UK when the sun shone all day and the Brits were able to head for the beaches or lie in the sun.

I personally headed for a local country park, one of the few left in the country where dogs are actually allowed albeit on their leads.  The area was covered in British families enjoying the sunshine, picnicking and having a kick-about with the kids.

It is great to see dogs out and about with their family enjoying the outdoors but as usual there was always the one irresponsible dog owner.

One group of adults had a young boy around the age of ten and a boxer.  They were relaxing on the grass like everyone else and the boxer was let off his lead and roaming around.  I don’t personally mind if someone has a dog off the lead, even where signs quite clearly state otherwise, providing the dog is well behaved and monitored but not one person in this group was keeping an eye on him.

This meant he was free to roam around all the other groups and families, standing less than one metre from those eating, and scaring one child who ran off.  Every now and then the group would call him back – by every now and then I mean every half an hour or so when they remembered they had a dog.

As if this was not annoying enough, a few hours later, the dog needed to release himself.  His owners had not once taken him to the field part where he could have gone and they could have cleaned up, and it isn’t the dog’s fault but not one person in that family saw him or cleared it up.  So there was a nice number two left close to a bench and a nice number one in the middle of two picnicking families.  Nice.

I daresay whoever monitors the country park will be not too delighted to find that this morning and who knows, it may even spark yet another discussion about whether or not dogs should continue to be allowed to frequent the country park.

Most people, especially those not so fond of dogs, will not remember all the fifty or so dogs that were well behaved and looked after but just that one dog that had the misfortune of being with that family.  It is owners like these who encourage the banning of dogs from so many areas.

Leanne Thompson