dog attacks in parks? happend to you? what to do?

[Kara Collie-Cross]

"Interesting" start to my morning.... Dropped other half at the station at 7am then proceeded to Bute park in centre of town with Kara... Lovely great walk, hardly anyone out at the time, dog running around woods, sniffing, birdies tweeting, all well.... Until we crossed the bridge over the river...

There is a woman, I've seen her before, she has about 10+ dogs with her. I doubt she's a professional dog walker. I've seen her van, covered in paw stickers and stickers of dogs but doesn't look like a business, I think they're all hers and she looks like she's in her 60s or so... The dogs are anything and everything, all sorts from Jack Russels, to border collies and three Great Danes.

Well these 3 GDs saw us walking over the Weir bridge, ran towards us and blocked our path all baring their teeth at Kara who was hiding behind my legs!!

The woman was playing with half of her pack by the river and not paying much attention to where the rest were, so I called her to recall her dogs but she could barely hear me.

Then one dog stepped forward and tried to get at Kara behind me. I shouted at it but it carried on moving forward and wacked him with my ball thrower. She could hear me shouting and started paying some attention and called her dogs (with no real sense of urgency though!), and they paid no attention to her whatsoever. The dogs let off after I wacked them a few times and I then had words with her from some distance.

Got the usual b*ll*cks of "They're young dogs they just want to play", to which I replied that if she feels she needs to own 10 dogs perhaps she could make some effort of doing some recall training with them. Those Danes came up to my waist and were fully grown not puppies, and they were aggressive without provocation. A further slanging match took place and I was very close to whacking her with the remaining end of my ball thrower, but thought better of it. I've got her number plate and I'm thinking of reporting her (to whom I'm not sure yet, LOL) but I guess it's one of those things no one will give a shit about.

I'm all for people's dog's being allowed to run off lead in parks etc, but for god's sake make them listen to you?!

I'm a pretty experienced dog owner and not easily intimidated, but heck they scared even me and I take narky doggie behaviour with a huge pinch of salt but that was something else. Any normal person would have crapped themselves.

Has this happened to you? What do you do? Is there any point doing anything??

[nuggie]

I think in the first instance you should report it giving the description of the Van and what happened. Next time you see the van take the number and report that as a follow up.Also say about the abusive manner, this can be construed as anti social behaviour.
She is obviously not in control of her pack something could happen. If your Kara had reponded to the threat there would have been a big problem.
Reporting it might help someone else in the future if not you now.

[amyjo]

Sounds like someone I homechecked a couple of years ago. At the time she only had 1 GD but the homecheck was for another and they had 3-4 collies but no JRTs.

I really hate they 'they only want to play' excuse. I make sure Louie doesnt run up to onlead dogs and any offlead that look stressed by his approach he is instantly called away. He is fine with other dogs but I know the other dog could be nervous/fear aggressive/ unwell etc so wouldnt want to put the other owner in an uneasy predicament.

[Kara Collie-Cross]

hmmm... I have her licence plate and can describe the vehicle...

I called the "101" non emergency police number - the long and short of it is they say it's not a police matter it's a council matter.

Phone call to the council dog warden - the long and short of that is that they can't identify someone just by licence plate, but need and address and ideally a name, for a dog warden to be able to visit and 'have a chat'.

Considering how abusive she was I don't think I'll be going up to her next time to ask her for her name and address.

oh well....

[Becky]

Connie, I pass this woman every morning on my way to work on my bike, and she literally has NO control over her dogs whatsoever. I ride fairly slowly on my bike being very mindful of dogs in that area (and also as its early in the morning lol) but her pack literally run amock on the road that runs from Sophia Gardens to the riding school. A number of times I have had to come to a complete halt whilst her dogs decide where they are going! I dont blame the dogs for this at all but she annoys the hell out of me Grrrrrrr

[cherylW]

I know where that woman lives, it's around the corner from me so I can get her address if you like Conny.

She is a menace, and I think people must keep complaining about her 'pack' because she obviously keeps moving the location she walks them in. She used to go to Insole Court, then her dogs chased another dog out of the gardens and it got run over on Western Ave

I used to see them up on Fairwater Green so I stopped going there but it sounds like she's moved on now to Bute Park with them.

Every time we walk past their house Megs cowers a bit as they are very intimdating if they are in the front garden (there is sometimes one or two of GD's in the garden. And the house absolutely reeks of dog, you can smell it when the door is closed!!

Poor Kara

[Kara Collie-Cross]

You know, both Becky & Cheryl, I'm glad you said that cos I've been wondering all morning if I was over reacting etc. But Cheryl, you know Kara and know how she approaches other dogs etc, and for her to cover behind my legs, she could see the GDs faces did not say 'playtime'.

From a "encouraging responsible dog ownership" perspective I have to say I did feel really passed "from pillar to post" this morning, with no one (in terms of authority) wanting to take much interest in this because "nothing really happened".

And the other thing is, some of us are bending over backwards to train our dogs, pick up their poo etc... and then some people give the rest of us a bad name.

[pennyb]

Speak to the PCSOs and rangers (cardiff parks dept) for that area as well as I know they monitor this sort of thing as they may be out and about more than you are and see who it is (may be even know who it is)

You should make 101 or whoever at least give you an incident number so that that it can be flagged up if it occurs again (we often ring re trail bikes and while they may not be able to do anythgin there and then they can eventually do something more proactive if they receive a number of complaints).

I often ring 101 re stuff like this or speak to parks dept or local PCSOs as they need the data for their intel