People who are too good for leashes...

We don't have this problem in the city (Boston). The only dogs I ever see off leash on the street are impeccably trained and walk in a nice heel with their owners - I always feel so jealous and hope my dog could do that one day. Dog parks and nature hikes are another story - I don't expect every dog in that setting to be perfectly trained but mine has good enough recall that I can usually keep him near me (or leave) if there's a problem.

I also hate being in a vet's office, when someone lets their dog pull the Flexi lead all the way out, and says, "OH HE LOOOOVES OTHER DOGS!!!!"

 
Were you with me on my last vet visit, or what!?!  Gracie is terrific with other dogs but I don't care if your dog is the Mother Theresa of doggie sociability.  Do not let him just strut right up to mine like that without asking!  We're in a vet's office... for all you know she's seriously injured and will bite your head off.  I immediately pulled Gracie back, and said "Excuse me!"  I don't care if I sounded like a B*!  He got a good explanation from the vet techs at the desk why it was NOT ok to let his dog do that. 
 
As far as I'm concerned, he got a little education at the momentary cost of his pride.  I've learned some really good lessons that way, myself.

Try running from an off leash dog in a pet supply store.  Some dumby dumb dumb just adopted this lab mix from a shelter.  He didn't have a leash for it and thought it would be okay to just bring the dog in the store without the leash.  Obviously, he didn't know the dog very well andwhen I went to show the guy where the leases were his new dog charged at me.  I literaly had to climb the register counter.

Good lord, what fool let him into the store without a leash to begin with?  Leave him at home if you don't have control.  Poor you! 

At that time, the store had been open less then a year.  I guess you learn by expirience.  The store owner now keeps leashes under the registers to give to unleashed dogs.

but "owner" was deemed un-PC.

That's probably that "guardian" crap.  Sorry, I OWN my dog.  I love her, I care for her, I'd give up everything in my life for her, and some days I feel like I only live for her.  But I still own her.
 
Apparently this off-leash permit thing is in a few places in CA, too.

It does bother me. When i'm out walking Jasper, other dogs run up to him. Jasper is quite protective over me and tends to snap at other dogs, and the other dog can snap back and fight. Sometimes the owner thinks they are just playing and won't really bother to call their back to them.

UGH!  This *just* happened to me yesterday.  Now that Ben has had all his shots and it is safe to take him to the park, a friend and I took Ben for his first trip to the park round the corner yesterday afternoon.  It was pretty much deserted, but there was a woman walking on the path around the perimeter of the park - it wasn't until about 5 minutes later that I realised she was walking her dog, since her dog was nowhere near her.  Bearing in mind that Ben is little and not incredibly well socialised with dogs yet, I was very watchful of where the other dog was.  However, there came a point when we couldn't avoid him, and this dog - a bulldog - came bounding up to meet Ben.  It's owner had his back turned and I swear, if I had screamed at the top of my lungs she would not have heard me, she was THAT far away.  I had NO way of asking her whether her dog was safe with other dogs.  Presumeably she knew he was, and therefore she didn't feel she had to supervise him, but Ben is a puppy and not totally dog-appropriate yet, so who knows how the dog might have reacted had Ben pushed his luck too much?  I was fuming.  Not to mention that being so far away, she didn't see her dog do a huge #2, so of course she didn't clean it up.  Not doing so is a) illegal here and b) makes the park horrible for the rest of us. 
 
We had a good time despite this, and Ben met a charming JRT named Daisy, who was off-leash but stayed within 15 feet of her owner, so I was able to confirm well in advance that she would be OK with Ben.  She was, and they played together for a few minutes before we left.  I was glad we had a good experience, but the owner of that other dog made me sooooo mad.  If Ben had been attacked or something on his first trip to the park, the consequences for his future could have been disastrous.  [:@]
 
Kate
 
 

I used to walk him like I was Clint Eastwood in an old western - eyes squinted, glancing constantly left to right, scanning the horizon for loose dogs.

 
Been there, done that. So many times, I can do Clint Eastwood's voice.
 

tacran - I used to walk him like I was Clint Eastwood in an old western - eyes squinted, glancing constantly left to right, scanning the horizon for loose dogs.

What a great analogy!! [] I do the same thing, only for the opposite reason.  Dasher is  my first small dog and my worry is a big loose dog coming up and being aggresive.  Anytime I walk him anywhere my eyes are constantly scanning. 

I'd rather meet a rude off-leash dog than one on one of those stupid Flexi leads with an owner letting the dog run wild! those things hurt when they get wrapped around your legs.
I rarely walk dogs on leash. They don't like my chosen pace, and I don't like their need to stop-n-sniff. But we always walk off-leash in legal areas, and the dogs are carefully trained to come when called and to not run up to dogs/people we meet. Most people sabotage themselves in this regard by letting their dog meet and greet other dogs and people, even on leash. It's much more useful to consistently train your dog to ignore strange dogs and people. Children manage to learn this early in life, so can dogs.

Ya know I don't think off lead dogs bother me nearly as much as Flexi lead dogs!
 
They run up...owners oblivious, and proceed to completely and utterly tangle my dogs, and myself up! We've yet to receive injury from this but having gotten a Flexi burn before I feel it's only a matter of time!
 
WHY do people get these leads and then not pay attention to their dogs whereabouts? They could cause serious injuries and falls esp in big open areas like parks, not to mention injuries to their dogs when they reel them back in and the dogs tangled up on some bush or other object!....grrr....
 

All my pet peeves rolled into one thread, what a great country this is. 

I darn near had my legs amputated at the ankles from an outta control dog on a flexi lead--me standing there with 5 pound Misty calmly in my arms wondering what the heck is going on while the 80 pound lab is doing laps around me and the owner continues to feed out line.  Oh, the joys. 

Dogs off lead didn't used to bother me until I got the 6 year old adoptee we are presently fostering, who is very dog aggressive.  I walk the dogs at a nearby schoolyard,  in my city which has a leash law.  Very seldomly to I meet anyone with their dog on a leash at the schoolyard.  It's maddening and isn't helping this dog's training at all.  Right now there's a huge debate in the city about a dog park and the dog owners demanding a spot to let their dogs off leash.  As far as I can tell, they're already doing that.  And, it's never the well trained ones that are off leash. 

Yeah the Flexi-Lead problem is pretty annoying too, though it's not as common here, at least not in my experience.  I almost always walk Cairo on a Flexi but I'm hyper sensitive as to where he is relative to me and the moment I see any human or dog nearby I put him into a heel.  I never let him run up to people.  The Flexi lead does give him some flexibility as to where to go, but I've trained him pretty well to stay off certain areas like other people's yards.  That's another pet peeve of mine, people who let their dogs saunter on other people's grass and then don't pick up when they take a dump in it  [:@] 
 
I've just started working at a vet clinic and we see a LOT of people who don't keep track of their dogs...we just had someone in yesterday with a 14 year old BIG black Lab and she wasn't really keeping it close to her.  When she was paying, the dog was pulling on the leash so she turned around, pointed to another dog in the room, and told her dog to go say Hi, without even asking the owner!!  The owner of the other dog was a little shocked, but her dog was a complete sweety so she didn't have a huge problem with it, except for the rudeness.
 
Another annoying thing about people and leashes is when they walk a dog into an offleash dog park and DON'T take the leash off!  People don't realize how intimidating other unleashed dogs can be to a leashed dog and just assume the dog's safer on leash.  Especially little dogs.

Sorry, but when I see people in LEASH ONLY areas with off-leash dogs, it makes me want to spew obcenities at them.  There is like, one route I can take in my neighborhood because of loose dogs.
 
DH and I took Sally to a leash only beach a while ago.  There was this idiot couple with a pair of GSDs running loose--they could see us coming WAy down the beach, yet made no effort to contain the dogs.  As we approached they tried to call the dogs back, but only one responded, the other completely ignored them.  I put Sally in a downstay and DH got in between Sally and the other dog, trying to look intimidating to get it away.  Then the guy starts yelling--"he just wants to meet your dog!"  Well, that's fantastic, but I thought maybe the fact that we are doing our best to stay out of you way and trying to ward your dog off might clue you in to the fact that I do not WANT your dog to meet my dog!
 
There was a lady when I took Sally in for her shots thathad this little poodle.  She remembered to put its jean jacket on it that morning but failed to remember the leash [8|].  Luckily, Sally thought it was the best thing ever and just bounced around like an idiot trying to play with it when it approached her, but what if she wasn't nice?
 
There was another time that I drove to a trail (LEASHED trail) and was unable to hike on it because this moron had his two GSDs loose and was not even watching them.....
 
As you can see, this has struck a nerve.