Liveinadive wrote:

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.

Fluorescent yellow is just a visibility thing, yeah. A yellow bandana, or ribbon tied to the collar or lead indicates that the dog is receptive to humans but not dog friendly. A red bandana or ribbon indicates that the dog is not receptive to either humans or dogs. It started off in America, but has gathered traction over here, and I know more and more dog owners in this corner of the world are aware of it.

"Liveinadive” wrote:

...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?

I have tried socialising Candy, but as a breed Staffies are instinctively not dog-friendly, and as a rescue, she’s even harder to socialise. The SSPCA, when I got her, basically said I was welcome to try, but basically it wasn’t happening. I know that putting her on a lead, physically shielding her or picking her up reinforces her fear of dogs but, when the other owner is so far away, what else am I to do?

At the risk of repetition, most days I go to the same park and stand in the same spot. Most days we see other dogs. Most days the other dog owners have dogs that, like Candy, are happy to play themselves and either take no notice of other dogs, or watch them from a distance. Only occasionally is there an issue, with a dog not under control, and even then it’s usually quickly resolved.

Today was particularly egregious because of how long it went on for, how little control the owner had over her dogs, and how little she did to deal with it.

At the end of the day, I could said fuck her and her dogs, and carried on playing with Candy until one of the little fuckers yapped in her face and instantly regretted it, but I put Candy on her lead and we left.

Gotta admit, I’ve only ever been very, very vaguely aware of the yellow signal thing. Generally if I see a dog wearing anything yellow, I assume it’s a rescue from the Dogs Trust and try to be cautious about talking to the owner before approaching. So I guess it sort of works, but not for the reason you may think.

Paul the sparky wrote:

Andy wrote:

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. ... Candy

I think that's my favorite bit. I do understand your frustration though.

Yeah, I knew it was a matter of time.

Andy wrote:

… people generally don’t maintain the it’s-what-they-do attitude if they’re dog gets bitten.

Totally with you there. I know I probably wouldn’t.

A bigger-than-most white GSD had a proper go at my last dog when she was only a pup, and I never got over that. Avoided the owner and his two dogs like the plague for years.

I generally hold by the belief that I can get between an aggressive dog and Cooper quickly enough to pull them apart if necessary. Cooper doesn’t roam far from me, unless we’re out in a big space and I’ve told him to. But I only hold that belief because I’ve had dogs my whole life and am very confident in my ability to handle them physically if I need to.

Im working on things with Clay (any advice would be great).

Currently I am using the command "come" while he is on the lead (long extending thing) and at totally random times. Started giving him a bit of kibble when he returned to me, which worked really quite well.
Now on to step 2, have him return without the kibble. Mixed results so far, he always looks up and will return but is very much looking for the reward, he then gets wise and stops returning until he sees kibble again.
Trying to work towards less and less rewards on return, so now he gets a reward maybe 1 in 3 times if he comes straight back.

It is tough though because of his breed, hes built for focused chasing. Hares, rats things like that, his breed is supposed to chase them without command and return when they have caught them.

I didn’t name her, and didn’t know how easily I could change it. I now realise that her name might as well be ‘Hemmin’ or ‘Kh’meer’, as they all have the same result.

I love staffies mate so whatever she's called she's a top tier dag

(also I've had dags called 'spangle' and 'velvet' so glass houses eh. As long as their nature is sound, you're sound).

Staffies are little slabs of muscle on 4 pegs. They are delightful when properly raised.

Dark Soldier wrote:

The key is to push her into the river.

Is what most off-leaders try and do to me when I'm out running.

Moot_Geeza wrote:

Heh, "it's okay, he's friendly" is something I've shouted countless times at people

Their owners say, mid-leg-hump.

If your dog doesn’t come back, the snacks you’ve got aren’t good enough. For recall with our greyhound it had to be cocktail sausages (cut up smaller pieces). Anything less wasn’t high value enough.

djchump wrote:

If your dog doesn’t come back, the snacks you’ve got aren’t good enough. For recall with our greyhound it had to be cocktail sausages (cut up smaller pieces). Anything less wasn’t high value enough.

oh man you have a greyhound! Me and Ev want one but we don't own our flat so fuck us apparently

Companies (a government one in this case) that don't have an e-mail address or contact form on their website. In stead they say to look into to FAQ "you're question will probably be already answered" or contact them via social media (urg). Then you go to their twitter and they don't even have a DM possibility? Really?

My online DigiD account (to log in on different government websites, student loan stuff, driving license etc) is inaccessible as I've lost my Dutch mobile number. They advised me to make a new account. I need to pick up the code to verify something within 30 days. Closest office is in Washington. I can also go to Rome or Madrid. What a fuckup. It was bad enough when still living in NL, as their password system was so complicated everyone forgot it, then it took 3 weeks for them to send a new code by mail. 
(There are offices in NL but that would mean I need to give some family member rights to pick it up. My mom's running her own shop so can't bother her, guess I'll have to see if my brother can make himself useful)

I'm not gonna phone them! Calls like this always take ages and I'm not gonna pay for international fees. 

I'm just hoping my brother will resurface soon (it's been carnival so will probably take a couple days before he's recovered) and that it will be easy enough to give him to rights to pick up my code.

It's just a system full of impossibilities. Want to change to phone number? Presumably because you switched numbers. They'll just send a text message to you previous number for confirmation.

Liveinadive wrote:

I had a similar problem with the tax man here the other day. Oddly I was just trying to bloody pay them but couldn't work out what sort code to use and couldn't find a number either. Just rang any general hmrc number in the end and got put through. Pro tip if you ever need to ring a company, ring the sales team. They will pick up straight away and transfer you.

If you can't remember which HMRC account to pay into you just Cumberland I think with your tax ref and it will get forwarded to the right dept. 
I did it all online this year via the gov portal and it had a nice and easy 'pay your bill' link in my account. Bish bash, done.

Escape wrote:

— When you get fed up of waiting for a video to load and decide to find it elsewhere, and then it starts playing as you're leaving its page.

Escape, in 2018. Apparently.