Unsavoury Characters.

[Emma]

We walked the dogs later than normally tonight (it was dark out) and enroute bumped into an elderly gentleman who we occasionally see when out walking.  He always comes over to fuss the dogs and have a chat and so was the case tonight. 

Mid conversation I saw in the corner of my eye 2 men walking down a road in the distance and saw Paul move in between our 2 mutts and hold on to Bear's handle which I thought a bit odd but as I was chatting about house prices and leasholding versus freeholding (yeah I know, weird thing to talk about, lol) I just tightened my grip on Bear's lead and paid no more attention.

After we said goodbye Paul turned to me and said "did u see those 2 men?"    I said no and he replied "well the dogs certainly did.  Didn't u see Bear?  I thought she was going to go after them, she was leaning towards them and looking like she does when she wants to Bark, and Ice was the first to spot them and he wasn't happy at all.  His ears and Tail went down, he looked very upset to see them."

Now I started to get a bit nervous as there was a sign in the vets warning about 2 men in a van trawling the neighbourhood looking for bait dogs so I was anxious they were eyeing up ours but Paul said they weren't interested in us, they were too busy looking through all the windows of the parked cars and checking in people's front gardens.   So clearly they weren't up to any good.

I couldn't help but wonder how my dogs knew they were no good just by looking at them.   They looked like travellers or wannabe's at any rate, and although I would like to point out that the vast majority of travellers I know round here are great honest people, unfortunately you get the few who give the rest a bad name and looks like these were one of those people as were the original owners of Ice, so I was thinking maybe he made the association from his past from the way they spoke or something?  One thing's for sure, both my dogs were very uncomfortable in their presence which is odd for Bear as I've never seen a person whom she didn't automatically love before.  Very unusual indeed.  I shall certainly be taking more care from now on , that's for sure.  Don't want to bump into these 2 particular individuals again, just in case they do take a fancy to my babies. 

[Andy]

Glad you're OK

[BingBlaze n Skyla]

Glad your all ok , I think dogs can sense things like this I had a lad walking behind me and the boys kept looking back specially bings then when he got closer they both starting growling at him till he'd gone

[Emma]

we're all fine, not exactly a rarity round here but not nice nonetheless. 

Ice has reacted similarly before to a man who was weaving around the street, reeking of alcohol and clearly off his face on something.  As he walked past Ice, Ice turned and growled at him, a bit embarrassing but I was secretly relieved as it meant he didn't stop to chat me up or worse. 

[stormchaser09]

it seems to be getting more and more common unfortunately.

My Mum had a bad experience last night when out with her wee collie. A woman with 3 large dogs -Leonberger type (at least the biggest one looked like it) started on at mum about being on her land- she lives in a rented house on the edge of Culzean park and a caravan park, but at one point she actually threatened to set her dogs on mum. My mum is in her 70'sand really doesn't need this kind of hassle. I went out with her tonight with Gem and saw the woman but she didn't say anything. She struggles to control them too.

 

It just seems such a shame that people can't walk their dogs in peace without being hassled by nutters or unsavoury characters intent on stealing - just need to be on guard all the time.

[Elyse]

Did you contact the police and tell them what/who you saw? If they are wanted persons, I would think that would be the right thing to do.

Dogs can sense things we can't. Smell, being their most sensitive sense, is vastly superior to ours. I'm not sure of the exact number, but I think its somewhere around 100,000X better than humans' sense of smell?

So, you can imagine how many things they can pick up that we can't: pheromones, hormones, etc. If they can smell cancer, I'm pretty sure they could just smell that something was dangerous/wrong about those two.

 

Not to mention, they are very atune to our body language. So they could probably tell a person was up to no good just by the way they were walking or approaching them, or by the way they smelled. 

We may unconsciously pick up on those pheromones/body cues too, which is why you can get a bad feeling or 'vibe' about someone. 

[Emma]

Did you contact the police and tell them what/who you saw? If they are wanted persons, I would think that would be the right thing to do.

Dogs can sense things we can't. Smell, being their most sensitive sense, is vastly superior to ours. I'm not sure of the exact number, but I think its somewhere around 100,000X better than humans' sense of smell?

So, you can imagine how many things they can pick up that we can't: pheromones, hormones, etc. If they can smell cancer, I'm pretty sure they could just smell that something was dangerous/wrong about those two.

 

Not to mention, they are very atune to our body language. So they could probably tell a person was up to no good just by the way they were walking or approaching them, or by the way they smelled. 

We may unconsciously pick up on those pheromones/body cues too, which is why you can get a bad feeling or 'vibe' about someone. 

No I didn't waste my time calling the police.  Tbh all I saw from the corner of my eye were 2 white males, not much they can do with that info.  and no point telling the police what was happening as it's not exactly new, it's always happening somewhere around here!  Usually someone's getting mugged/burgled/car stolen or burnt out etc.........  This area is a known crime hot spot to both police and community. 

[Osinn11]

Good thing you've got those 2 big scary dogs! Ours have been taught to bark by using hand signals. It's a great trick and comes in handy especially in situations like this. Also when there are solicitors at the door. Hope the un-friendlies were just passing through and not hanging around.