On my way to work today, I spotted a large, off-the-leash mongrel that looked something like a black bull terrier cross and its owner, a young woman, walking calmly into the park behind my place of work.

A few seconds after they vanished out of sight, there was a volley of barking and the mongrel quickly reappeared looking rather panicked with a small yappy dog clinging to his throat! The dog looked something like a Lhasa Apso, which are roughly 10-11 inches tall to the shoulders and weigh roughly 14 to 18 pounds.

The owner of the yappy little bastard, a man, managed to separate the two by booting his turd of a dog up the arse a few times and held his two dogs off at a distance as the woman checked her dog over.

His dogs were leashed from the start, but the little yappy dog was still barking away and attempting to get at the larger dog, which was sitting quite quietly as its owner cleaned the bites.

So, who do you reckon caused the problem in this scenario?

In my opinion, it was the woman that caused this problem. Her dog may be the most obedient, friendly and well-trained dog you ever saw (well it has to be pretty high up there for not wanting to bite the crap out of that yippy dog when it attacked!), but other dogs that will inevitably be encountered on a walk may not be so tame or friendly, and if your dog has no leash on, you have little control over where he or she goes and no way of restraining them away from these dangerous situations before it kicks off.

I’ve came across far too many off-leash dogs whilst walking, one encounter had three medium to large sized dogs (1 border collie and 2 crossbreeds) which were snarling aggressively at other people and dogs whilst their owner wandered along a good few feet behind talking on his mobile, not a care in the world!

Another was an over-eager pointer-type dog that, although the owner shouted (from a fair distance I might add) “He’s fine, he’s friendly!” when he came running over, the dog I was with at the time may not have been so friendly and it may have ended in a nasty dog fight.

Yes, off-leash time is great for dogs, I don’t doubt that, but for goodness sake do it somewhere secure and somewhere that you can call the dog back quickly should you spot another dog, such as in an open field, not a common walking place like a path along a canal, a housing estate or a bloody town centre.

You’re just asking for trouble with the dimwits that are allowed to own dogs these days and you really don’t want your own dog to lose an ear (or worse) from the types of people that give all dog owners a bad name.