Dog-owners must realise not everyone will love their pooch

Published: 10 June, 2010

• I CAN appreciate the benefits dogs bring to the lives of many (It’s criminal for your dog to attack a swan – or me! June 3).  

What I would like to object to is the minority of irresponsible dog owners (and they are abundant).  

My six-year-old daughter is still petrified of dogs because of an incident in Kenwood House when she was two. On the steep, narrow, stairs by the cafe a large dog, off lead, ran down the stairs, barging past three generations of my family to stick its face in her face. The dog was barking and excitable and considerably larger than her, my daughter was screaming in fear.  

When my father-in-law asked the owner to control the dog, the owner did nothing, and an unpleasant argument ensued. We felt the owner had an aggressive sense of entitlement to her dog’s behaviour (because that is what dogs do) and somehow we were in the wrong.  

Where I live dogs are allowed to roam unleashed in dog-free areas and paw bark off trees. One only has to look on YouTube to see incidents listed of dog fighting in the playground and football pitch in the park behind my house. 

Dog mess is left everywhere to the point where you cannot go on the grass in the park where I live.  

Westminster residents come everyday onto my estate to exercise their dogs and use it as a dog toilet. Despite being a dog-free estate many residents keep dogs in inappropriate accommodation. Why? Because they don’t get penalised by Camden.  

The news is full of incidents of children being mauled by dogs, sometimes in supposedly safe playground areas.

I have no problem with the responsible dog-owners who are in the majority. I would just like to see a firmer and more proactive and consistent approach by the council to enforcing and resolving the issues with the irresponsible owners and their dogs.

Anyone who owns a dog should accept the position that not everyone else may be as enthusiastic about their pet as they are, and as such they must keep control of it and clear up after it at all times and certainly train it to behave so it doesn’t run up to strangers and jump up or bark at them, which is terrifying for many.

What is required is responsibility, sensibility and an appreciation of how one’s (and one’s dogs) actions are felt by others.

FLO CUBBIN
Ainsworth Way, NW8