"Warning - Loose Dogs"

I think I am going to need a "loose dogs" sign for our gate!

I was home from work early yesterday, so got changed and was pottering in the garden. I had sorted the chooks and bunnies out right at the bottom of our garden.

As I was walking back up, I happened to glance at the house. Now, you can see right through our kitchen windows to our side patio and therefore the gate, and if someone is at the gate, they can see you if they are looking.

I saw a van outside our house, saw the gate open and someone in a blue shirt come in. Not my OH!

At the same time I saw it, the dogs heard it. They went off their heads, barking and charging to the gate.

Whoops. The ParcelForce man who had come in had to beat a very hasty retreat! He made the gate with less than a second to spare, and the dogs crashed into the (now closed) gate with him on the other side. Of course they were barking their heads off and foaming at the mouth

He had seen that my car was in, and the back door was open. As he had come through the gate, he had seen me walking up the garden, but hadn't seen the dogs!!

They were very close to actually getting him, and I'm fairly sure he would have been bitten by Max had he not gone back out of the gate! The boys would have known instantly if the visitor was someone "allowed" like Hevvur, my OH, one of my friends etc and wouldn't have gone ballistic.

We're going to get a "Warning - Loose Dogs" sign for the gate so that no-one else makes that mistake

I suppose I can console myself with the fact that although they looked horribly frightening, at least if it had been someone malicious, they would have been "seen off" by the dogs!

Whoops.

Not clear from your post whether the guy was trying to get to the front door or was coming round the back as he had seen you?

oooopps!!!


definately a sign to cover yourself incase it happens again!!!

We have a sign with dogs running free on it, x

Yeah definately a good idea And for us too when we fully move into our house as the whole property is fenced. We need a horse sign too now that I think of it cause at times there are horses in the 'house yard' like now. Glad no one got bit though. And yes its good to know that you would be safe with the boys

Glad the ParcelForce man didn't get bitten.
Would a "warning" sign be sensible though?

Would not Shona's one of "dogs running free" be better?

Just trying to think that if you use the word "warning" someone will misunderstand it to mean something more than just "loose"

Phew! I am glad the guy saw the dogs before they got him!

I would stick some kind of notice on your gate - ie please close the gate - dogs running loose, or I used to have a plastic sign with a photo of a GSD on it, saying "I live here". That should be enough to put anyone off from just wandering into your garden.

Nice to know the boys would protect you from any unwanted visitors though

I'm sorry my reaction is completely different, you need a fence within your garden to keep the dogs away from visitors. What if the visitor was a child delivering a newspaper or someone less agile. A dog can be ordered to be pts for biting these days even if the event happens on your own property. And a sign can indicate to a court you knew your dog was dangerous and still did nothing to stop an incident

I have a "dogs running free" sign as well as "beware of the dog" on our back gate so if anybody enters when they shouldnt, cant say they werent warned!

But I remember when I was a courier, going into back gardens was always a worry. Even front doors that were behind closed gates were troublesome as you never knew if there was going to be a dog coming charging at you or not. Sometimes a parcel would state "leave round back" so I always entered gated areas with lots of noise and then a pause to see if any mutt came running.

I would advise against a danger/ or warning or similar, stick to dog running free or similar, Im sure there is a similar thread a while back going into the down side of warning and similar x