I KNOW that my dog would never hurt anyone.
But I also know that no one else in the world has spent hundreds of hours with my dog, and to them he is a strange and large animal. Inevitably some of these ppl probably have some kind of childhood trauma related to dogs.
So I always have him leashed where the rules are to have a leash.
More than once, I've been put in the position where my dog is getting agitated because they're on leash, their dog can't be controlled because they're off leash, and we're rapidly approaching the "Swift kick or risk injury" stage.
"My dog is off leash because I want them to have freedom" is a profoundly selfish decision if you're in a place to encounter other dogs.
This is cultural, I think. In the UK at least it’s often the norm for dogs to be off leash in open areas like commons (public land, usually grassy or wooded, or a mix of the two), or in other settings where they’re away from roads and won’t encounter livestock.
On public footpaths in the countryside farmers will put up signs indicating where livestock are and where dogs need to be kept on leash. The rest of the time, again, most dogs will be off leash.
Compliance is really high, with almost all dog owners I see following these rules.
There’s a deterrent as well: if your dog is bothering farm animals the farmer is within their rights to shoot the dog.
I do think the post you’re responding to has a very naive view of dog psychology though. Thousands of years of selective breeding means that dogs are fundamentally not wild animals, and as such their behaviours and needs are quite different from their wild relations, such as wolves. Many breeds of dog are so far removed that they would very likely be incapable of surviving in the wild: I’m thinking principally of designer breeds like pugs which, overall, I strongly disapprove of.
The people _never_ ask if my dog on her 2 meter leash (the law in Arizona, btw) is friendly, dangerous, anything. They just announce that their dog isn't dangerous to us.
So often the small dog runs up to my dog's face full speed, centimeter from her nose, gets satan-barked at and driven away from us. she's sensibly trying to protect me and her from the little barely tethered full speed maniac.
The people ask if my dog was abused. Nope: had her since she was three months old, the feral mom and others were all adopted. They just don't seem to consider that _they_ were aggressive, in dog body language. And that's hopefully eye opening for them.
On a serious note, I miss the wide open spaces I could bring my dogs to in AZ. Where I live in NorCal it’s practically impossible and even if I could let my dog off leash in some places, the poison oak often stops me from even considering it.
Be glad in NorCal there aren't the ubiquitous rattlesnakes and babies this time of year. And of course the heat is an outdoors dealbreaker still for a few more weeks, except at dawn. Canine cabin fever. But i sure miss the more pleasant outdoorsy weather in NorCal.
