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Posted by DavidJ
on 7/17/2008, 8:58 am
75.105.150.109
My daughter and I just got back home from a two week stay in Hungary, and I wanted to share a few impressions with you about the Hungarian dogs.
-dogs were allowed off leash even in Budapest, the capitol city. We saw dogs in the central district (large volume of traffic and fast driving) walking with their owners. The dogs typically trotted about thirty feet ahead of their owner and stopped and waited whenever they got much further ahead than that. When coming to an intersection the dog would turn if he knew his owner would turn or wait if he knew they would cross the street. The owner was often talking on the cell phone or with a friend and paying little attention to the dog. The dogs ignored other people and other pedestrians ignored the dogs. Dog to dog encounters were uneventful.
-a dog could be left outside a store and it would stay exactly where placed. Average dogs seemed to be obedience trained at the level of our best trained dogs.
-dogs were allowed on all forms of public transportation w/ a muzzle.
Again, they were very well behaved.
-My biggest surprise was found in the country. We had rented a car to go to a very small inn (a change of pace from the big cities) and found that dogs don't bark at people walking by. We walked by dogs in fenced yards and dogs free in the yard with no fence. Never were we barked at. The dogs just watched us walk by without making a fuss.
-we didn't see many dogs in restaurants but did see them in a few. Dogs were allowed in motels including some of the more luxury hotels. Instead of "do not disturb" signs for the door, they had "Dog in Room" signs. And, I do mean had since I brought mine home :-)
It was an eye opening experience seeing what could be possible if everyone trained their dogs to a reasonable level. Thus, allowing dogs to be allowed more freedom.
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