Most dog owners consider themselves polite and believe they are not offending anyone. My bet is that even the most conscientious dog owners among us have something to learn.
First and foremost, when you are walking your dog, you need to lead with empathy. Your mindset should not be on you and your dog and what you know to be right for yourself. You mindset should be on those around you, what are they feeling, what expectations to they have for their environment and what are their rules. The way non dog owners think and feel could be markedly different from those of us that love dogs.
It is important to give other people the space they need to feel safe. You may know that Golden Retrievers are a very friendly breed and expect that nobody should fear them. But, they are a large dog and some people may be uncomfortable letting a big dog get close to them. This is of course true of any size dog. Someone could be afraid of even the tiniest little Chihuahua. A good tip is to keep your dog ten feet away from other people unless the specifically give your permission to enter their space. A popular approach when passing others is to keep you between the person and your doggie.
Now it is time to cover an uncomfortable topic. That’s right we are going to talk about pee and poop. We have to refer back to the core guideline. We have to see every situation through the eyes of others. For dog owners, pee and poop are just a normal part of what a dog does. Most of us think that if a dog pees somewhere, it is no big deal. It is just part of nature. And, we likely also believe, if a dog poos somewhere and it gets picked up, also no big deal. But, put you self in the shoes of others that don’t own dogs.
To put this in perspective, I will share a couple of stories. One is a story from a neighborhood social network. One neighbor, Alice posted about how another neighbor, Bob walked their dog past her house every day. And every day the dog urinated in her yard. She took pride in her yard and spent a lot of time keeping it up. Every day she saw the dog pee in her yard, she got a little angrier. She thought it was so inconsiderate. Bob, on the other hand thought nothing of it. It was just pee, happens all the time, disappears into the ground. Over time, the daily urinating killed the grass and left a brown spot. That is when Alice lost it and posted a tirade on the neighborhood site. Bob, saw it and felt really bad. He had no idea that walking his dog was causing someone else such distress. He apologized profusely and agree to walk his dog around his own yard until the business is done. After his dog completed his business he would venture out in the neighborhood.
The second story actually happened to yours truly. Many of you have probably been in a position where your do pooped in someone’s yard and you thought about just leaving it. Maybe the yard was not maintained or it was far from the house. You might look around and check if anyone noticed. Maybe you didn’t bring any baggies with you. Well, I kinda got in a sticky situation. I was walking my friends dog Bruno around their neighborhood. I did remember to bring a baggie and I was fulling planning to pick up the poop. Well, Bruno did his business. I looked down to pick it up and the dog had had diarrhea. I really felt like I didn’t have any options to clean it up. So, I just left it. I still feel guilty about that. So even a conscientious dog owner with the best intentions can have a bad outcome when pooping in others yards.
These stories show that even if we aren’t intending harm, letting our dogs pee or poop in someones yard can be problematic. Even if you clean up the poop afterwards, that could still be offensive to a home owner.