Is it stereotyping the Irish or teachers? Works either way, IMO.

Still not sure who's being stereotyped there, mind you.

You obviously never went to school in a village in Ireland.

Kow wrote:

Well every school I ever went to had a least a couple of alcoholic teachers.

Just found out that our resident pisshead has got through to the final stages of The Apprentice. She can not string a sentence together, so probably ideal. Apparently she doesn’t have a business plan as they go through that at this stage. God knows what she’ll come up with.

I think Labour’s Brexit fudge is making that trickier.

It may be our only export.

Who's that, then?

This is the park where I generally take Candy to play. As you can see, it’s pretty big. In this photo you can just about see the two small football pitches in the smaller section of the park. The larger section is big enough to contain a full size, eight lane running track; you can’t see it in the picture because they just re-burn the lines into the grass each summer.

Apologies if I’ve gone over this too many times in the past, but Candy is not great with other dogs. She has never, ever, in the four years I’ve owned her, approached another dog. She ignores them but, if they get too close, she makes it clear that she doesn’t like them. She has snapped at a few dogs that took her by surprise or ignored her discomfort, but never attacked.

Because of that I take her to this park, which is less often used by dog-walkers than other parks in the area. I go in the entrance, about midway along the south side, make my way up to the far north east corner, and launch her ball towards the oak tree. By standing there, I can see most of the park, and have plenty warning of other dogs arriving in the area.

Today, I was standing throwing her ball, when I heard a yappy dog coming down the lane that runs outside the east side of the park. Not sure of the breed, a flighty, bouncy, brown thing the size of a small poodle with similar hair, but a face like a Lhasa Apso or Shih Tzu. With no offence to anyone here who owns one, it was clearly one of those retarded, annoying, pointless breeds that I’m baffled still exist. I had my earphones in listening to the Allusionist podcast so, while I could hear the high-pitched, feckless whine of a distant owner calling the dog’s name in vain, I didn’t actually hear what it was called. If I was forced to guess, it would probably be called something like Boo-Boo, Snuffles, or Lollipop.

Boo-Boo was going fucking nuts, doing that dog thing of darting between gaps in the hedge like an itchy flea with ADD, briefly straining forwards and upwards for a better look before darting to another spot three feet away to see if it afforded a better view. I was already irritated by this dog, I would have been irritated by it even if I was there without mine, and I knew it would continue to annoy, even as its friend, a smaller white thing that is almost undoubtedly called Precious or Princess, bounced into view. It would be some time before their useless flesh mound owner waddled into view.

I moved away from my corner, toward the oak tree, and not before time as Boo-Boo entered the arena and bounded towards Candy like a Minion with a historic, significant head injury. I took hold of Candy, and was grateful that the dog possessed just enough survival instinct to understand that my, “No. get away,” was an indicator that it’s gormless existence might end if it came closer. Unfortunately, Boo-Boo only learned this for long enough to start running back to its owner. Upon watching Mrs. Grape take a lifetime to descend the three or four steps into the park, and spurred on by Precious joining the half-witted expedition, Boo-Boo about turned and decided further investigation was necessary.

By now, I’ve picked Candy up, because these dogs are smaller than her and it will not look good if she demonstrates to either of these dogs how fucking dumb they are to ignore her baring of teeth and quite but insistent growl. In the distance, a couple of hundred metres away, the Honey Monster is dragging her gunt across the grass like something Tempy would paint of an afternoon. The dogs finally fuck off, but not as a result of her feeble calls.

I put Candy on her lead, and watched the woman, my stance screaming the words I wanted to actually scream out, “Would you ever control your dogs and fuck off you fat fuck?” She dithered to the south edge of the park, but Boo-Boo clearly thought that they needed the entire area to bounce around like Tigger’s ‘special’ cousin. I managed two more throws of the ball for Candy, but Boo-Boo kept haring towards us, coming worryingly close so I had to put Candy back on her lead and leave.

It’s really fucking annoying. If those dogs were remotely well trained, there’d be no reason why we couldn’t all enjoy that massive space at the same time. Instead, I have to cut Candy’s play time short. I love animals in general, but would happily kick those two into the river. I would say the owner, too, but I’d break my foot.

I’d be genuinely concerned about the prospect of being assimilated.

Many dogs have a primal urge to stick their noses into other dogs' butts.  If your dog isn't likely to enjoy that experience you need to accept that it's not just the whiny yappy ones that aren't particularly sociable.

The yellow bandana thing is a new one on me, after three decades of owning dogs - not everyone's infallible or au fait with all the signs.  You're doing the right thing byCandy, she needs the exercise and you're taking precautions, but if she bit mine I'd still be fucked off with you whether the warden considered your control a problem or not, as would most owners I'd imagine.  I'm not preaching, just typing my initial reaction.  It's a balancing act of sorts.

Or just dogs being dogs. I think there is a bit of both here tbh.

Clay can be a nightmare to get back, it is something I am working on and he spends most of the time on the lead because of it.
That being said a park that rarely has other dogs at it is exactly where I would go to train him to be off the lead.

Im aware of the fact he is a jumpy, play with me, type dog and the vast majority of dogs love it. I know to be wary of it though as I have a friend whose dog did bite another dog while being annoyed by it. My mate was pissed off at the other owner but he conceded that if he knew his dog was likely to bite, regardless of whose fault it is, he should be muzzled. Many people don't know about this though and I've certainly never heard of the wearing yellow thing. Most dogs I see wearing yellow are well up for playing because they are the type that run around, they are dressed in yellow so they can be found again.

It's easy to wag the finger at the other owner but they could just as easily ask what you have done to socialise your dog properly and if you go into panic mode when a dog appears what message is that sending when you are the alpha?

Not making accusations or anything there, generally agree with Moot.

TBF it does sound like this person was a right numpty.

Pretty much my stance on kids

Heh, "it's okay, he's friendly" is something I've shouted countless times at people when I see them putting tiny dogs on leads as Bramble lumbers over, ignoring my instructions.  That's definitely on me - if the dog looks like a possible problem or the owner indicates as much I'll bring out the extra bass and he generally obeys.  I'm far from a perfect owner.  It kind of boils down to, imo: the owners of the untrained dogs are more at fault than you are in this situation, but the repercussions of your stance can't be undone if there's a flashpoint.  There's maybe no right or wrong, just a general 'look after your own' thing when it comes to anyone being protective of their dogs.