matty7 Wrote:ive got mastiffs and an Alsatian here - no idea when they would ever be loose but id hope someone like yourself would find em and make them safe - we have a huge problem here with Pikey's steeling dogs from gardens so id pray that if found that someone one would check their chip
The thing is, this dog could have been stolen, hit by a car (70mph road close by to where he was) or even abandoned. Any owner of any animal should be taking precautions to avoid anything bad happening, my dog has no means of getting out unless someone is stupid enough to just leave the front door or garden gate open.
Our dog is well fed, gets better exercise then most people do and is rarely left home alone for anything longer then an hour. We've had no complaints from neighbours, and she's incredibly loving to anyone who we welcome into our house. When we take her for a run with a ball or Frisbee the local kids also come join in if they're in the green area where we take the dog, she's a sucker for attention and gives more love to people then they ever could to her.
We were given her by a family who couldn't look after her when she was 6 months old because one of the parents were constantly in and out of hospital, at the time we had 2 other staffies and she integrated well with our other 2 dogs that we had at the time also becoming obsessed with the eldest one.
The eldest one I mentioned above we had from 1 1/2 years old until he passed away. We were never told this at the time but the people who had him before were trying to get him into dog fighting so he had a bit of a temper when it come to other dogs at the time. It took loads of hard work but we managed to get him to a state where he would even let other dogs play with him and his rope when we took him out. Bad dogs come from bad owners, I'm no expert in raising dogs but my family did an exceptional job considering where he came from originally.
A lot of people these days really don't have an interest in giving a dog a good home, its about looks and reputation most of the time. Too many people are breeding popular dogs for the money and have no care for the people who they sell the pups to. My sister's dog had a litter of pups and she made sure to check out anyone who wanted one, she even refused several "pikeys". Looking after dogs is far more then feeding, walking and petting them when you feel like it, there needs to be a stable loving home and plenty of time to teach the dog that you as the owner are effectively their pack leader and part of the family amongst many other things. I think people need to be given a licence to have any animal these days and made to declare what animals that they own so that the welfare of the animals can be better looked into should it need to be. I could go on about this for hours but I'll stop here before it becomes a massive rant.