Leash your dog, please (and be nice about it?)
Come one, come all: Heated off-leash dog incidents are happening again
Throughout my near-decade in the online dog space, I have found myself wading through entirely too much controversy. One of the most consistently heated topics I engage with is off-leash dogs. Why does our human-centric world have leash laws now? When should—or shouldn’t—we follow those regulations with our pets? What happens if we don’t? Does it still count as rule breaking if your dog is under control? (And I can hear some voices from the internet comment sections already: Honestly, who even cares, Karen?)
Off-leash dogs are yet another “multiple things can be true at once” conversation for me. I religiously respect the legislative intent of leash laws with my own blue heeler, Scout. I also vehemently believe our modern pets deserve biological fulfillment—and giving them opportunities to freely move their bodies is a top way to satisfy their instincts.
Balancing multiple values and stakeholders can be messy.
This is all top of mind again because I recently saw an article in Backpacker reporting that hikers were physically assaulted and threatened with guns after confronting dog owners in a national forest. (The part of the forest they were hiking in did, in fact, have leash laws.) Ugh, I thought. As if we need more terrible news. (Don’t even get me started on the associated Instagram comment section, much of which did not pass the vibe check. Read at your own risk. Actually, please don’t read. Just go touch grass and play with your dog instead.1)
As I scanned the article, my stomach roiled with recognition. Although I’ve yet to be physically harmed, I’ve felt unsafe asking fellow handlers to recall or leash their dogs more times than I can count—and if verbal harassment left bruises, I’d be black and blue. When I shared an essay reflecting on the heightened emotions of some of our most intense encounters with a writing workshop this summer, my peers were shocked. “I can’t believe how antagonistic people have been to you,” one of them said. “Honestly, me either,” I replied.
Of course, in the moment, emotions—and subsequent actions—can get the best of us. I’ve made so many mistakes in the way I interact with people who let their dogs approach Scout without permission: I’ve shouted and cursed and made the entire experience suck more than it needed to for everyone involved. I’ve also conducted myself in ways I’m proud of, though, only to be met with someone else’s boiling temper.
Too often it feels like there’s no way to win. And in a world where stories like the one I just read are real things that happen to real people simply trying to enjoy time in nature, who can blame us for feeling on edge? When someone’s off-leash dog approaches us, I have to make a bunch of quick calculations and risk assessments like “is the dog reasonably friendly or out to cause harm” and “how easily will I be able to prevent them from reaching Scout, who is scared and doesn’t want to interact regardless” and “what’s the likelihood the other handler will skewer me for stepping in” and “is Sean nearby? I always feel safer when there’s a man at my side” (quickly followed by rage that I always feel safer when there’s a man at my side).
The ability and willingness to pull a firearm on fellow hikers obviously speaks to social and political issues beyond “dogs should roam freely in nature” entitlement. But I do think entitlement—and a fundamental lack of empathy both for other people and nonhuman animals—is a key problem in the dog world, especially the adventure-dog corner of it.
I return to a few core concepts:
Not everyone (human or canine or other) is comfortable around dogs they don’t know. And that is not an insult to us dog owners and our beloved pets! We all have our own past experiences and preferences.
If my dog is going to be off leash in an area that is not a designated dog park—so, a place where free-for-all interaction is not expected—I need to be able to reliably recall her back to me. This is for her safety, and fellow visitors’ comfort, and wildlife/habitat conservation, and our relationship’s cooperative back-and-forth.
The way I reach out to someone else can help set the stage for a smooth interaction, but I can ultimately only be responsible for my own actions. (I will keep repeating this point until I convince the pit that lives in my stomach of its truth.)
Small steps to respect other people and pets in shared spaces can go a long way.
Some people are deranged. We make the best risk assessments we can.
Most people are not deranged. I believe this especially of most dog lovers: We are doing our best. So we try to practice empathy and embrace nuance and plant seeds for incremental change.
Right now we’re on public land ourselves. I’m writing this post from a bright-yellow lawn chair in a dispersed campsite, looking over rolling hills dotted with pines and the occasional yellow aspen, Scout dozing next to me. This morning we enjoyed an off-leash walk along the gravel road: We recalled our cattle dog when we passed within view of anyone else’s camp setup and then let her run ahead the rest of the time. We stopped at every scent that caught her interest and intervened only if needed (a “leave it” kept her from trying to play with a small toad hopping across the path).
One of our neighbors has been giving her own dog off-leash time, too. She’s taking similar steps to be kind: When her scruffy companion tried to wander towards our van about an hour ago, she immediately called him away and then kept him on a leash the next time they passed by. I waved at her. She waved back. Everyone was able to breathe and feel safe and relax.
I will hold onto the joy of that mutual consideration.
Related reading
Other notes and news
I’m counting down the days until I can publicly share a big exciting still-kinda-surreal writing project!! (I’ve dropped a lot of hints, though, because I do not know how to hold back.)
I’ve eased into spending a little more effort on Instagram again lately. (Time will tell if this is a great or poor idea.) Social media hurts, but it can also connect—and if I just can’t seem to really let it go (I can’t), my goal is to maintain that platform as a complementary version of my longer form thoughts here.
I finally reorganized all my article pitches and lit mag submissions into one cohesive spreadsheet, which was equal parts motivating and demoralizing. There are a ton of great online services and pre-made spreadsheet templates for this, but I once again insisted on being a control freak and building my own. 🤷🏼♀️
To this end, I have purposefully not included a link to said Instagram comment section.
Thank you for your comments on leash/unleashing. I have a heeler shepherd mix. Today was the first day we took him to a dog park. We purposefully arrived early, when there might have been zero dogs. Off he ran and chased a frisbee in the big dog pen. When two small dogs came into the smaller dog pen, we leashed up and left. He is an adolescent baby (6 months next week!), and play time is learning time.