I met the meanest dog...

My sincere applogies to the forum and anyone I may have offended.

I was indeed mostly referring to a dog that I witness on an almost daily basis--a border collie obviously bored out of his mind. The other two--a lab and a chihuahua--are at houses that have always had dogs tied up out front. I grew up in this neighborhood and haven't been up there in a long time so I was surprised to see that they still had dogs tied to a doghouse out front. So they aren't just let out for short periods. I DO understand that. A friend at work had animal control called on her dog--an APBT--that she had put outside for some fresh air for just a little while. That's no different than me putting mine outside in my backyard. I'm sorry--I didn't clarify myself very well.

 

When I was younger and i still had my golden/chow mix, Marty, we used to tie him up to a big shade tree on a long chain while we were outside gardening, but he always had shade and a bowl of ice water and we never left him tied up unsupervised.(he was a great escape artist). This was only on nice days and the rest of his time he spent inside with air conditioning. We eventually got him an underground electric fence and quit with tying him altogether. Where i live now, there is actually a law against tethering your dog outside from the hrs of 10am-5pm. The fines for it are pretty steep too. I think that mostly has to do with the fact that a lot of people here will tie up their dogs and not consider the movement of shadows as the day wears on and the dogs can get heat stroke in the hot Florida sun. I used to work in an animal shelter clinic and saw so many dogs brought in that had been tied up without attention from their owners for so long that the poor dogs had some nasty imbedded collars. The owners would tie them up as a pup and never check their collars to adjust for normal growth. It was disgusting and heartbreaking how many times i saw that. Often the chain or rope that they were tied with was so old and weathered where it was attached that they were extremely difficult to remove and had to just be clipped off. Once even a pregnant female pit who was about ready to pop with puppies was brought in with a choke chain wrapped across her chest and back toga style and was literally imbedded at least 2 inches into her skin and it had healed over the chain. She was a lawn ornament. Sometimes it is hard to tell if the circumstances aren't as bad as you think, but i for one would start to wonder if i didn't see some kind of supervision from the owner where a dog was left on a chain and i didn't see at least a dog house/shelter area, water dish and maybe a toy. I'm not saying i'd run and call animal control first thing, but if the dog looked at all neglected, i'd probably keep and eye out for the owners interacting with the dog and consider whether i needed to make a phone call.

P.S. no offense to those of you who DO tie up your dogs on occassion, as i used to do it too, just always made sure he was comfortable.