I don't know where else to post this, but it's causing me a lot of distress/anxiety so I figured here would be a good place. It's also a bit long, I'm sorry.
My family has an anxious, German Shepherd mix dog named Pumpernickel. She's perfectly happy inside the house, but afraid to be outside because of how often she has been attacked by other dogs. My neighborhood has a problem with loose and poorly minded dogs. We cannot have a fence. The HOA will not allow it. So we walk her outside whenever she needs to go outside. Because she's a scared dog she often will bark at people going past if we don't distract her from them. Many of our neighbors have told us that she should be put down because of this. I'm not sure why they feel compelled to tell us this, especially when walking around the neighborhood sets off a cacophony of other dogs as well. I guess we just get told that because people are awful and we're outside to hear it.
Last week there was a freak accident. The leash broke while my mother was taking the dog out. She got a few feet away from my mother, into the street, before being recalled and pulled back into the house. Nobody was nearby. No cars came. Nobody was hurt. We figured everything was fine. While we were on the porch trying to figure out how the lead broke this old woman who had been walking her dog down the street, not near us, but close enough that she saw our dog go into the street from a distance, came up to us and started screaming at us. For fifteen minutes. She screamed about how our dog was a menace. How our dog was coming to murder her. How our dog could have murdered a small child. Granted, our dog did get loose for a few seconds, but none of those things happened. I lost my temper when she said our dog should be put down and told her she had no right to scream at us. But that's all I said. No insults or anything. I shouldn't have said anything, I should have just gone back inside, but I was mad. Anyway, she got madder and screamed that she was going to contact the HOA and animal control and eventually stormed off.
Two days later animal control showed up at our door. We knew the animal control lady because she was the one who picked up Leo, this very sweet loose dog that I was able to catch after he'd been running around the neighborhood for two days and nobody else could get him. Animal control was very grateful. Anyway, the animal control lady explained that a very long, ranting complaint about our dog "terrorizing the neighborhood and trying to murder small children" had been reported. We told her what actually happened, and she said we would get a citation if it happened again. Because, technically, our dog left our property without a leash and that's illegal. While she was there she also told us that, unfortunately, they'd gotten too many complaints about Leo and he'd had to be put down. I was devastated. I barely knew this dog, but he was so sweet.
Now I know my neighbors a) hate my dog and b) are not above lying or exaggerating the truth in order to get us in trouble. I'm terrified we'll have another accident again. Or worse that we'll start getting false reports. If enough reports are filed they could take our dog away and put her down. Logically I know this is unlikely. It was the metal of the leash that snapped without any warning. Which probably meant it was a defect in how it was created. Which is rare. And crazy old women who scream at people for fifteen minutes obviously have mental issues and will move on to the next thing that "offends" her like some poor service worker she can try to get fired. The likelihood that she will be offended by us again is low.
But I asked on a dog forum what I can do to keep my dog safe/prevent it from happening again and so many of the replies were telling me that maybe we should listen to the neighbors and put our dog down. Because anxious dogs don't deserve to live. Because being afraid to go outside is no life for a dog. Etc. Etc. And like, I know it's a false equivalence to think that people telling me that a dog being anxious is miserable and doesn't deserve to live to extrapolate it to the idea that anxious people are miserable and don't deserve to live...but I kind of did anyway. That, on top of the constant berating that we were terrible owners and that a "good owner" would have never let their leash break in the first place and that we didn't deserve to own dogs. That our dog could have murdered that lady and her dog and therefore we deserved to be screamed at...even though our dog has no history of murder. Or even biting. And that it was my fault that our dog keeps getting attacked by other dogs. And my fault she's anxious in the first place, even though she wasn't anxious before we got attacked the first time when she was a puppy. Because I'm just supposed to know when other dogs are going to attack us while we're on walks, and understand dog body language perfectly, and process fast enough to stop them, and know how to stop them, and be perfect. Or I shouldn't have a dog.
I don't really know what to do. I'm mostly just venting, but thanks for reading or any advice.
TL;DR: My dog's leash broke, she hurt no one and got near anybody, but this old lady screamed at us for 15 minutes, told us our dog should be put down, and then filed a complaint with animal control. Animal control told me about another dog I befriended being put down. I am now very sad and anxious that something bad will happen to my dog too, even if it's unlikely.
31 Jul 2024, 9:22 pm
She's too smart in the dumbest ways.
