Sorry, I should have said "when dogs are off their own property, I thought it was the law that they have a collar and an ID disc".

Am I right does anyone know?

Good post Wys. I think the trouble with forums though is that us humans are far better at face to face communication, than remotely over the telephone or over the internet. When you are face to face with someone, you might say to them "gosh, do you think you might be being a bit judgemental there?" but in a gentle tone of voice, maybe putting a hand on the person's arm to soften the words? You cannot do any of this body language stuff in writing of course, nor can you put inflection on the written word in the way that you can verbally.

I guess we are the same as our dogs - if they talked to each other on chat sites, or over the telephone, there would be chaos!!

As far as bullying is concerned, I think bullying is a very emotive issue - one man's bullying is another man's dry sense of humour. However, when my daughter was at school being badly bullied, I always remember her head teacher telling me off because I thought she was being a bit wet, and that this was just playground teasing. He told me no, your daughter is very upset by it, so for her, this is bullying. A more robust child would have most likely given the boy a smack in the mouth, and that would have been the end of it. If someone feels they are being bullied by someone else, then that someone else is a bully in the eyes of that person ... if that makes sense!

I believe it over there. However, crap happens and collars can get caught on something and come off or a dog can slip its collar while on a lead or get out of the house without it. So being without a collar doesn't necessarily mean that an owner was being irresponsible. It COULD mean they are, but it also could have been an accident.

thanx Crysania, I wasn't implying it was irresponsible at all, I just thought I had been told or read somewhere that dogs now should have a collar and an ID disc when out and about.

I agree about collars getting caught, can't recall it ever happening to me, but I know my 2 are ace at slipping their collars, especially when you are trying to get them into the bath!!

Ah the infamous bath. I let the groomers deal with that one!

I always prefer a snap collar in case something happens and the collar gets caught. Not that my girl is prone to running away (she only darts out of the house to stay glued to our side), but I'd rather a collar come off than a dog get strangled!

I do like the idea of ID being necessary. If more people had a simple tag on their dog it would make returning them so much easier.