rgbrando

Hello, I see that this thread has been dormant for a little while but is the most recent I could find relating to the issue of dog walkers in the area and so I wanted to post about an incident I witnessed today in Peckham Rye which I think is relative and partly why I share Ben's concerns. One of the regular dog walkers (male, curly dark hair and beard, quite large) had 5 dogs, most off the lead. I was near the gate leading on to Colyton road when I noticed he was shouting at the top of his voice at one of the dogs. When I looked, the dog - whose name was Cecil, if I remember correctly - had run out of the gate and was crouching by a car (which turned out to be the dog walker?s car). The dog then proceeded to run across the road, causing a car to break sharply and beep its horn. At this point the man was still quite far down the path in the park shouting for the dog to come back in, whilst trying to keep the other dogs he was walking together. A woman with her own dog started walking towards Cecil and trying to get him to come close enough so she could grab his collar but the dog was too confused. He looked like he would run into the road again but luckily didn?t. Eventually he ran back inside the park gate and the walker was by this point near enough that he could grab him and put his collar back on. The woman then made a point that the dog should not be off the lead if the walker couldn?t control all of the dogs and he then seemed to get very aggressive about it. The incident just seemed to illustrate the problem when dog walkers have too many dogs, especially when they also let them off the lead. If something happens - like one attacks another dog, or runs out into the road like this one did - they?re not able to react sufficiently. Yes, any dog could attack another, or sometimes dogs don't respond to re-call, but if you have a whole bunch of other dogs you're trying to manage as well how can you possibly give the situation the attention and response it demands, often in a split second. It could have ended very badly today, but fortunately it didn?t. I walk my dog in Peckham Rye almost every day and it seems like the number of dogs per dog walker keeps increasing. It used to be maybe three or four at most, but now sometimes it?s as many as six or seven. There are definitely some responsible walkers who take two or three dogs at a time, but they seem to be in the minority now. Any way, the main reason I wanted to post this is so that other dog owners are aware of this particular dog walker. I would certainly want to know if that had happened with my dog, though I doubt the owners will ever be told. Surely there is something that can be done to raise this issue with the park keepers - as has been suggested earlier in the thread - and put a sensible cap on the number of dogs allowed per walker?