I had run-ins with dobermans that owners at a couple of houses thought they should just run loose. Not attacked there, but how do you fucking properly approach an angrily barking doberman as a young teen after being attacked by a pair of german shepards when you were a younger kid?
Don't try and tell the caninephiles that dogs and their owners could ever do anything wrong. Only a child full of hate would be startled by a German Shepherd lunging at the fence every time the child has the
cajones to walk home from school. "The dog's more afraid than you are", of course. "He's sweet, he just doesn't know you", which puts me in mind of having a deformed redneck cousin who you keep in the house who doesn't attack his family members but strangers are fair game.
Yes, there are badly trained dogs and there are also some unstable, unreliable and dangerous dogs as well just as there are unstable, unreliable and dangerous human beings. I have moved house because of a dangerous dog, as a matter of fact. I wasn't safe, my husband wasn't safe, more importantly, our kids were not safe, nor was the mailman, the old lady walking past, the police officer who was too scared shitless to take any action to protect any of us and insist the dog be better confined instead of being left where he could break out of doors and go after people or jump fence and go after people. I felt a little bit for the dog who was clearly unhappy and clearly wasn't getting the attention he needed but the dog was in serious need of a lot of serious training and possibly being put down if the training didn't work. The owner was a POS who had no idea what he was doing and was unwilling to recognize that he had a seriously dangerous dog in a neighborhood full of kids and people simply walking home from the post office or corner store. Frankly, if the neighborhood had been full of murderers, it still was unsafe and unreliable and should not have been kept.
There's a big difference between badly trained dogs which are plentiful and unstable, unreliable dangerous dogs, which are relatively few. My former neighbor's dog was both badly trained/untrained and also unstable, unreliable and very dangerous.
It's too bad that you had bad experiences with some dogs when you were a kid and worse that no one helped you out. Clearly, that is not what happened in the case of the dog who was guarding his master's property which was entered by a thoughtless, stupid employee. In that case, the dog behaved far more rationally than the employee did. No one was hurt, although the employee did provoke the dog.
The fact that some people are frightened of dogs is not the same thing as dogs who frighten people who are easily frightened by dogs are dangerous. The fact that some people are bad dog owners is not the same thing as their dogs deserve to be put down! although that happens far too frequently.
I have large herding type dogs who are not at all aggressive. Most people who see them just want to pet them and to get to know them, but some people are clearly frightened of dogs. When I see someone who clearly is frightened or even a little unhappy that my dogs are out, I have the dogs walk very close to me, and if possible, change course to avoid the person who is disturbed by their presence. I realize some people have only had bad experiences with dogs and may not be in the mood to learn that my dogs are sweet. I don't have a right to expect that of anybody. I do have the responsibility to make sure that my dogs are well behaved and are within my control at all times. That requires effort and attention to surroundings (attractive nuisances abound, especially in the spring!) and to my dogs and other people, especially if they also have dogs, children, or seem in any way to be unsteady on their feet or frightened or disturbed by my dogs. The last thing I want is for anybody to be frightened or hurt, which in theory could happen if one of my large dogs bumped against someone who was unsteady on their feet. But that is fairly unlikely, actually. My dogs were quite good with my disabled mother, who was more than a little unsteady on her feet. Still, it is my responsibility to make sure everybody is safe and FEELS safe.
I like (most) dogs but not all dogs. I've known some who were poorly behaved and poorly trained but not dangerous, even if the dog was a large one. Those dogs (and owners) needed training.
I've known a couple of fairly nasty tiny dogs that if larger, would never have been tolerated by even the owners but would have been put down. I've known a few dogs who were 'crazy'--unstable, aggressive, prone to attack--and by attack, I mean attempting to bite, successfully biting (serious bites, not nips!) and to harm. Those dogs needed to be put down.
Most dogs I've known have been good dogs, even the imperfectly trained ones.
