I am in a suburban area away from the city.

When I moved into town 40 years ago, it was a free range town.

My first morning here I had a pair of large boxers at my back slider with their noses against the glass, saying hello to my dog, their new neighbor.

Over the years they put in leash laws but they were not enforced for years.

They over time they started enforcing leash laws.

Now I am more likely to see a coyote loose waking around than a dog.

The attitude about loose dogs has changed over the years.

I think it just goes along with general changing attitudes in general.

We have one neighbor that refuses to walk the dog on a leash, she carries a leash, but won't put it on and is combative/snippy/dismissive when asked.

Dog is great though it's a golden, friendly, and comes to my garage when the doors open for a treat, since we lost our Basset.

Still, everyone else complies but her....

This message has been edited. Last edited by: HRK,

Another thing that changed over decades, is dogs barking all hours of the night. In most places anyway.

Growing up in semi-rural MI, the family about 400 yards down the road always had a pack of bear hounds. You talk about barking, non-stop. We had dogs, including a German Shepherd or 2, they like to bark. I was used to it, kinda like living near a busy train track.

Now days that’s a no-no in many areas. I’m semi-rural but I’ll call my dog in after 9 or so, though I let her bark a little.

A relative would get a call at 2 in the afternoon if his dog barked 2-3 times. I think that’s a little overkill.

Neighbor in my past life (Pennsylvania) 5 days a week left their Bassett hound outside all day.OOOFF, OOOFF, OOOFF, OOOFF. I was working 3rd shift. Came within 1 trigger pull. I called the police. They sat in front of the neighbors house for 10 minutes and issued a nuisance citation. Fortunately they moved shortly after.

I used to live next to a bear sanctuary in Western NC, literally our side yard went for 13 miles till you got to Georgia. Any dogs found off lease were shot by hunters because of the sanctuary status. But I’ve never seen it. The neighbor below us was a retired park ranger and he kept dogs on the back of his property to keep bears away.

I never saw a bear while living there, but I did hear his dogs start up a few times.

I shot a dog that was running at my then 3yo son. But that’s a no brainer.

Back when I grew up in an urban neighborhood dogs simply ran loose, there wasn't any kind of leash law. There were also no deer around.

Fast forward 50 years and dogs are all on leashes and deer are roaming around everywhere and people wonder why this is?

Most people who live in surburbia and even some people who live in the country fail to realize that dogs can form packs and hunt as packs. It could be strays, but it could also be 2 or 3 country neighbors who let their dogs roam free 24x7 that form packs and hunt as packs. In the pack, they'll act completely different than at home. I remember one Sigforumite posting about shooting a dog pack who went after one of his horses as a pack, and the pack was neighbor dogs.

We live in a sparsely populated semi-rural area. We all have acreages of various sizes. This morning we were walking our new Dutchie when we were aggressively approached by a neighbor’s loose Giant Schnauzer.

I believe I explained earlier that we have this dog because she was too soft for her intended training. In the two weeks we’ve had her we’ve made a lot of progress with her obedience and socializing. The last thing we needed was for her to be assaulted by this Schnauzer.

I purposely did not use the word “attacked” because while the dog’s approach was aggressive, it did not appear to be in full attack mode. I put myself between our dog and the Schnauzer, grabbed it, and pinned its head to the ground until I could get hold of its collar.

My wife is yelling and the neighbor appeared. They are friends of ours, but both are struggling with health issues, and have from time-to-time just let their dog out to pee unattended. He was extremely apologetic, but my wife is afraid to walk our dog (and our previous GSD) by herself because of a fear of loose dogs; this the result of a bad experience years ago.

I must admit that while I was wrestling with the dog, she never tried to bite me, but a bad experience can ruin a dog, and I know this from the past experience my wife endured that ruined a good male, working GSD we owned at the time. Ironically, I had just replaced our can of dog spray, but we went out the door without it. Never again.