Quote:
Originally Posted by ShowGirlLola  Seriously, be very careful. My aunt used to let her westie out front without a leash, did it for years, insisted it was fine, until the day he ran into the street and was ran over by a truck. |
Wise words. It's not good to let dogs out front routinely without a leash but their impulsive nature doesn't mean you can't train them to obey you in all circumstances. I kinda see dogs as toddlers, only faster, and you can never 100% trust one outside without restraint; but a good dog handler can work to gain 98-99% control and management of their dog's more obsessive impulses if you work with them so that they aren't constantly running off from you, digging under or working out of the fence/gate and door-darting to go chase something or run away whenever spooked or free.
A dog who will stop on command when chasing a squirrel before he gets to it and gets bitten, a spooked dog who doordarts and heads for the street when the ambulance attendants fail to restrain him while wheeling you out on a stretcher or dashing through the hole in the fence the kids made that you just saw is a joy to have. When he's been trained over and over that he'll get a big, rewarding payoff so that he sees stopping from chasing or running off as a win-win for him, even out in the front yard, he usually always stops and the training pays off huge in most real-life, unplanned situations.